Banking on Death
I’ve got two grams of heroin in a vault
comfortable margin for overdose
button-pushing bunkerboys
have the skeleton key to my
non-recreational stash.
It’s the end-times checkout junket
the only power I’ve got
I’m not interested in wars
for water, oil, or atmosphere.
I could deaden my empathy and strive to survive
it’s neat to eat wheat, it’s gnarly to eat barley
but I’d rather kill my body than my soul
or my circumstantial enemy, after me and my family
for what he doesn’t have, what I was born surrounded by
mountains, water, infrastructure, province of empire
can’t bear nobility’s pretense inheritance, sacred geography
must be free of egomaniacle sophistry.
Let my friends fight for the fatherland
when push comes to shove, they’re assets
and artists are useless in war
can’t fortify the beaches with words
or mine the mountains with music.
In the instant of survival or death
I’d fire back but
I’m hoping not to be caught off guard
and suckered into long-term investment
what is the return, survival?
A currency seeming so stable in luxury.
Ф