Arts for the 21st Century

World Turn

Just past the smog of some ZR

horking up and spitting

one drop riddim to Silver Sands,

our grimacing lunatic leans in and

rechristens me “B” as in

“B, fuh real. Check this thing. fuh real…”


Opting to wait

like me - “ B ” - for any comfortable ride to self,

he drops words on a voice

as powerful and as altering

as a pinch of sea salt.


So for Christ’s sake,

I start checking these ‘brations.

How in two thousand and fifteen,

in this arm-holed winter season,

if you catch a bus or van

running through Oistins,

your overstuffed computer bag and sweaty palms

can photoshop the tourises pink smiles to lines,

flattening their faces to

“thy kingdom come...”

“Is dem sorta scenes de worl movin’ pun now.

Just rememba dat, B.

Guidance… ”


Then out of nowhere

truth sends you this friend request,

and you accept to find sense

ticking in your head,

swelling louder until the myth

that you’re so safe

finally blows apart –

streamed live in the violence of whole cities

kalashnikoved to dust –

and human flesh, still quivering,

splattered against the insides of your conscience,

forming a vile cosmos of instagramed terrors

expanding at the very speed of night;

ebola opening shop in the district of a testicle,

school shootings, beheadings,

and this worrying waterlessness besieging the

heart of man,

inevitably rendering us all

moon-eyed refugees.