Tribute
Love and hate are fabricated bullshit
When you plummet, laminated in a pyroclastic
Perspex veil,
Strung up like a tribute in the air below the granite summit
Strung precipitate beneath the cold silicate hail.
Cut a swathe through ragged cloud
Just like the bossman’s tailor drags his scissors through a linen shroud.
Bossman bought an exit window
From a corporation that showed very little intrigue
Because love and hate are bullshit trifles
When the bossman mops his brow
And henchmen wave their rifles.
“O we have fed and clothed you
And we have not killed your family
But still you show us little loyalty.
O we can wring a spineless scream out of your throat
If you should wish.
We took your measurements. We had a window made especially.
Your wingspan cannot catch the sides
on your way down. Your head will break your fall.
Scream if you want. It will not save your skin
But your loved ones will want to know the way in which you died
And when we notify your next of kin
We’ll tell them if you went out dignified.”
