Tomorrow is forecast to be the hottest March day ever recorded in Portugal. Coincidentally, it is also Donald Trump's ultimatum deadline for Iran to open the Straits of Hormuz after which he will bomb the country into the Dark Age. Iran's threatened response is to destroy the middle eastern oil/gas fields and water supply precipitating the collapse of the world economy. Analysts swing from the language of 'off-ramps' to Armageddon. My favourite sound-bite today was "There is no sane military objective," but sanity seems in short supply so we wait like every generation that has had it's moment of history.
Over the years I have written various poems in response to Israel (some published here), and have begun bringing them together as a collection, which will be called "The Opposite of Israel". Within this project, this is my poem commemorating this dark day:
The Hottest Day on Record
Twenty-four hours in - to a forty-eight hour forecast
We are used to waiting, “the future’s so bright
methodology, constraints, random words from god”
to wear shades, lazing under Yggdrasil, waiting,
the fertilizer may never come. Ignited a fire
you can’t put out, a heat dome, a significant asset
lost like the ability to eat
it’s not legal but it’s legitimate. Er, okay,
it is too late for them because dances in light cones
happened through those places and pleasures can
we can never claim the amplitude probability
Though idiocy surrounds and suffocates,
faces will not be necessary to hum
What if the leakage is coming the other way?
So I deny allegiance in advance of anything
can happen does happen.
