John Tustin

Clinging

Clinging to your bogus patriotism
and your antique religion:
your misguided and blind acceptance of 
– and deference to-
the family,
as if they are a connection of lily pads
leading from shore to paradisical shore.

Each false feeling, every comfortable untruth
sinking you deeper into your complacent morass.

You redesign your mind in orange florescence
and knock down all the load-bearing walls
for the sake of aesthetics.

There you are,
clinging to the life raft of sentiment.
There you are,
clinging to the clods of misguided duty.
There you are,
shining a torch into the already well-lit corners.
There you are,
behind the barbed wire
of blanketed rage and human frailty;
of human stupidity and human pride.

With the subtlety of a rhinoceros,
charging to the foot of the volcano
then standing fast;
painting little acrylic islands
on fingernails that have never felt dirt underneath.
The lava escapes the volcano,
down the other side,
rushing down toward all you know.

As you pretend standing guard,
all of your life and love is devoured
in the flame and the spew and the ash;
in the vitriolic spume much like that 
which constantly emerges 
from your own dumb and insatiable,
platitude-filled,
execrable mouth.