Dishevelled shadows, timber-hitch knot of dark
Invading sleep, monster
I made from apps, from blood,
From codes, gamers’ sweat, kite marks, desperate
Melodies of steel braid, humming cables to abandoned resorts
Of high snows, ice route to plague diaries,
Distancing, this is what the past looks like,
Afterthoughts, no time to savour, to breathe
I no one remembers, I, piecemeal, homeless beneath
The hoarding , my cardboard bed, my newspaper
Covers, my death stare
The sound in my mouth black plumbing, my history
Howling, you can hear it, even
Where you live, through your shiny vaginas, your
Subsequent statement to what you heard in your isolation,
In soft encryptions, diamond edged labia, your vote registered
The villagers have torches, monster, they
Said, we ping your signal between masts
Follow your streaming biopic to find you
Your rags filthy, sour, the wonder vaccine spoiled
Are your genes still yours so much
Of others in you, your market test stats, donor card sharks
Troll this make us whole again beyond
Our designer houses a death covenant
No cash, contactless now, instead of sky miles I, walking
Across Europe, Turin Paris Madrid
The old stone cities empty, London full of ghosts
Streets bars cafes nobody there
The killing swathe of it, all, maybe
Maybe not, I hear piano music
Teased from ancient air fossil voices
Somebody hidden inside, no one buries the dead
No cash, contactless now, I at the border, metal miles
Of ditches of corpses burned without prayers
My soul goes everywhere, for visas, for the lost world
New York Hanoi, the beautiful girl in the mask
Sitting naked by the open fridge in the heatwave
I’m crazy, I think it’s all about me
Monster, passing through a country so peaceful
I hope if I’m dead already somebody will say
We the people of the grave, coming back to our hometowns
Silently but cherished, those diseases behind us
No way back, Wuhan those
Other places so stressful
My consciousness a dragonfly, people sad
Because of worrying
Knowing that all the rich houses are broken
Their contents their pianos coffins bombs, no matter
My consciousness, wet market product selfish
Suffering, sufferers the people
Off work, stopped schools, no rhymes now
Confused hope for safety like the past this
Is what the past looks like, greaseball RNA choking
Sterile the distance between us
Song for the hustlers, the badass down grid dealers extinct
Dreams your hookup guy with no name, monster
Your people a thousand years ago, your likeness
Its generation of farms armies drawing rooms
Swindlers clerks in low lit back rooms
The midwife the gambler the one who preached
Salvation the one who sickened, the one
Lucky in love in business in not dying
The one who came to the mind’s high place
Beyond the sickness leaning into every breath
Along the road a lone blue surgical glove, skinned
Crumpled animal tumbles randomly, chance patterns
Of rest and motion, hazardous waste escapee
Across restricted zones one way only disembodied
Infractions this is what the past looks like
Think of stars coming round into shapes
Connected making gods animals humans
Fate notions history notions these predictions
Guatemala is a cardboard coffin no carved mahogany
No angels the dead are in their houses the dead
Bagged boxed loaded into trucks
From their houses, hazmat teams blinking back
Sweat, the load heavy endless deep in the houses
Families waiting in hallways by the dead room
Dust stirs from the roads the trucks moving
Along the roads the dust rising through the trees
Who is that, walking, who is it approaches
So near, how will we be known in these distances
Dissolving in a touch, threatens
Kills, remote sniper shot, timer switch
Greetings monster, a fair morning your gutter
Bedding your pedigree insouciance at ease
Where the nurses whisper all is well my love
Where pale passengers on the empty bus, whisper
Connect upload imagine join awake with others
Tech surge washing through the rooms
By the hallway that opens
To wide vistas where the dead have gone
Peace be unto you, and unto you, monster
Your newspaper bed, receipts prescriptions shredding
For your mattress your hope
Your breath your breath your breath your breath
A rainy Monday stare, blank mirror look
And now my attention to all these things adrift
The villagers redeem with fire purify with fire
Monster they say, from your sanctuary dreams you
Will arise, from your rage, from your rags
From the delicate hands of the nurses who
Were with you at the end, here where the dead are tallied, this
Is what the past looked like
