The People’s House is on fire.
Each news story emits another disorientating plume of oily smoke as something new succumbs. The incomprehensible losses of systems and institutions is like a home invasion – each new rending means order lost and chaos blinds our eyes with the stinging dust of collapsing foundations. Is that the roar of flames I hear, or the roar of my own fearful pulse in my ears? I circle the corridors, testing doors lightly with my fingertips, but the fire is both nowhere and everywhere… where there’s smoke, there is fire, isn’t there? Is there not fire? Coughing, I wonder – is the smoke the point?
Gaslights were progress –
Steady illumination
No need for candles:
Peer again, past the darkness –
Through the open window, stars.
