Those who hunt shadows incite your readiness,
to be prepared to welcome something undesirable.
For when the night no longer meets the day.
When fortune fails to be delivered to your door.
A world of scarcity becomes the daily deficit,
when we must ration what no longer flows.
By candlelight we miss all that we once possessed,
when expectations once were generative of our faith.
The preppers’ song familiar by default
can be contageous as the rhythm of a metal drum,
to join the round where feet surrender to the beat.
To understand how stark the loss of certainty becomes,
you suspect all those no longer worthy of your trust.
They want what little you are rumoured to protect.
They argue we have need to be more vigilant,
The goal is to survive more by your wiles and wits,
than by your wants and liberal beliefs,
assets earned are taken to become contingencies.
Don’t be a fool!
No one is coming to deliver peace,
much less prosperity that can be banked.
They come to claim what is not theirs to hold.
While auditors may preach the virtues of austerity,
to ration one’s humanity is said to be legitimate.
Because the moment they once prophecized
arrived today, fragil as a bubble burst,
authority proclaimed today to be a state emergency,
that we must share what once was ours alone.
To find a place where staples can be safely stored,
And fitted with a golden lock and key,
Because survival is a business we take seriously,
where freedom is a loan or promisory note.
A caution that the wise must practice every day.
Each citizen becomes a trustee of the self.
The tenure of your limited authority
Is granted to your fist or to whatever shield you hold.
The patience we once had is wearing thin.
We cannot trust our neighbours now without reserve,
Unless they are made ready to commit
To a narrow future that is threatening,
So lock-up your daughters if you can,
Because the world no longer is predictable,
Nor can its workings save you from collapse.
Fear is a fortress covered with a paper roof
that hopes to weather the approaching storm,
because the one which gathers overhead
is set to redefine the nature of the dispossessed.
It’s coming for your holdings and identity
by the dwindling comfort of your private life.
There is no clever exit strategy,
and the number 911 has lost its trigger ring.
No longer certainty can yield collective happiness,
a place to which you dare not claim to be a resident.
How can the image of a broken world
provide the faith that all too soon will need
to wade into the rising tide of the insideous,
when we struggle already just to be compassionate.
Be careful what you fear or might bring about…
The measures risk you drawing to your breast
the ugly stranger
that you dreaded to be someone else,
because panic has become his battle charge.
I wager there be no more or less of him
Than what be captured on a roll of film.
Is not the body just an object under loan?
For when you pass beyond the hidden veil
Another will be chosen to address the stage.
All have their role to play within the gravity of nights.
Your body now a tapestry, forever to be read
on which an illustrator etched a suite of graphic signs.
Each image cauterized with metallic inks
that cannot be so easily erased or over-scribed
by a simple change of mind,
a reminder of sobriety surrendered to a whim,
and then a strange compulsion.
How did you wish the message be received?
Beyond the scent of searing flesh,
A painful pledge entrusted to your heated blood,
Such markings once can make a person notable,
If not discreetly hidden under camouflage.
More than a brand, you could become a specimen,
Never to be mistaken for another.
Where imitation fails as the highest form of flattery.
Here I see a serpent sliding up your arm?
A rose upon your calf,
the stillness of a dragonfly upon your neck,
A tiger tooth growling on your thigh,
And here a fainting signature?
Your body now a canvas in need of a good story.
Beyond a moment’s vanity,
the rite of boys and girls has drawn you here
to tempt the surge of pride.
Despite the waves of pain along your patient frame
that will reflect your purpose back before the glass,
a christening of sorts not easily dissolved.
The sign of some enriched identity,
You bet on your belief that self might be remade.
How to explain those digits on your wrist?
The arithmetic storied days are blessed now,
How meaning can be captured in a simple truth,
honouring the heroism of your son
wrestling whispers, those of demons long endured,
before the passing of his uncertain stay.
A state not fully fathomed by a mother’s love alone,
But a testament to a long battle with brut addiction,
Where now you wear his daily abstinence,
a badge that celebrates the colours of his hope,
a journey told in sweat and tears,
a life more precious …
than the disappearance of a race with time.