by tom bauer
I was born with my teeth bared hunter-like
and I chased the good life like it was a stag
in God’s forest, chopping workdays like trees,
dragging them back to build a family home
and nourish new children with veggie stews,
candles lit, our smiles in golden shadows
around a table, but there was nowhere
to hide, we couldn’t escape genocide.
and I chased the good life like it was a stag
in God’s forest, chopping workdays like trees,
dragging them back to build a family home
and nourish new children with veggie stews,
candles lit, our smiles in golden shadows
around a table, but there was nowhere
to hide, we couldn’t escape genocide.
And never thinking, not once, it would be
this neural energy, fluids heating
the nervous systems of society
like some mid-century reptilian brain,
terror pouring out of mansions on hills,
muddy rivers flowing, crashing great stones
to earth around us, unable to hide
because we hadn’t escaped genocide.
I had the job, the car, the family home,
I had built a life on plans, blueprints of hope,
big dreams of a career being a star,
but nothing I could do could stop a war,
though I’d hoped there wouldn’t be anymore,
no more bombs and the shrieks of dying kids,
but I think we see there’s nowhere to hide,
we cannot, will not, escape genocide.
tom bauer lives in montreal with his sons and plays boardgames.