Torpor.
TORPOR
When the southern wall
fails to secure us,
they will demand another wall.
Then two more walls.
Then the ceiling.
There
within our concrete coffin
the oxygen now exhaust fumes
the children devoid of knowledge
their innovation and imagination left unfed
their parents down the mines
months at a time
attempting to excavate
the prosperity they were promised
and the canaries no longer asking us
to remember what music sounded like
before they asphyxiate.
Bodies gone blind
and pallor gone pandemic.
The blood thinner.
The incisors no longer incisive yet
the canines filed to finer points.
Language lost in the labyrinth
of what used to be
its own meaning.
As the world in observation
of the oubliette
where once was us
bounces whispers of warning
off the arc of the atmosphere:
“There lies the vampire of the species;
unsatisfied with the arteries
and disdainful of the veins
it chose instead
to eat itself.”
Creative Control 