The cows are hiding under the overpass as pedestrians melt into the pavements above. A wild flush of quivering heat advances on the kinds of living beings that can’t endure, the shifting of climate change. We run faster and faster, yet our feet stick to the asphalt like tar to shingles and the mice shake the dry dust from their thin hairs.

Polar bears have no time to consider the rest of us as they plunge into frigid waters turning soft, feeding on what is slim pickings and wandering into homes with lives being deconstructed from above and below. The smell of dry grass lingers across prairies and the blossoms of once colorful trees fall without attaining adulthood, becoming limp reminders of a time now passing quickly. Like wispy clouds landscapes change and we wander aimlessly, towards shelter or maybe rain.

That smell of damp earth comes and goes. The memory of sodden soil lies thick and solid under brambles of irresponsible money makers who kick the licking dogs aside and step on bones of the dead. Fires race along the thin rim of our lips, arcing towards the air that rushes towards our nostrils, as we gasp in horror at our undoing. Nothing inside everything, a vacuous heaving of what we call life as the cows moo from a distance; a reckoning call I presume.

Fruits can’t make it to the table, the ice in our glasses colder than the ones in Antarctica. The legends of the jungle lay restless as the bright sun slices through the thin canopies that once secured their tiny young, a winless fight to live. As shots echo across boundaries, we fall, like children did in schools that can no longer protect, like the unanswered prayers we pray.

Horses running wild looking for water as centipedes curl up and die. Move to the right, no move to the left. Stop! Your actions only dizzy us! It’s a trick to keep us guessing while you sit with feet atop your desks, contemplating the next move…your air-conditioned room makes me sick. Your window is covered with images of greenery, your fake eyes see fake progress and you try to feed fake hope. Fuck your words and the fake Italian suits you wear; it doesn’t hide your rupturing cysts. Like the rest of us you must now live with the aftermath of a presumptuous life.

Peace.

CJM