Downstream at Any Time of Day

This is a dirge to mourn the unfortunate due to the paean of another’s relief. A sympathy vomit when all that can be mustered is a dry heave to expel the waste of the ecstatic. No matter how loudly the raucous Rumi rants--do not drink. The flight of their offspring is the millstone around your neck, pulling you into the depths, made opaque by the deluge of their excretions.

As utilitarians pin material to make the most of your abundant sterile resource, we do not need refills thank-you.

And if this is not enough, you boast covenants with the earth, as if you could scratch the back that bore you. I tell you that your organs are the inheritance of the Gobi and will long be desecrated by the worms before you repay that debt. I tell you the truth, it would be far better to make a covenant with the stronghold built against you. For out of the soil you came, but the soiled will return you therein.

Author's Note:

Written 9 years ago.

Original Author's Note: This poem is a response to Under a Full Moon at Midnight by Merrill Leffler which can be read here: https://globalpoemscollection.com/under-a-full-moon-at-midnight-2/