Poem’s Industry & Progress

A review board convenes, votes
to lift the restrictions

lines on a map appear

for the prime investor, it is a coupe, capital
flows into the machines

reading extracts the resources,
truck loads, driving unsafely on questionable roads,
filled with significance, leave
for the container ports, and markets
overseas send a cheque

but jobs are created, review
publications, chapters propped
up thriving on Poem’s product,
that shining bin, that exasperating cargo

economic forecasters watch him,
his subsidiary paper product tax shelter,
and then, the vein is near
exhausted, the reserves spent,
the harvest dwindles and
Poem is left vacant

the road is abandoned,
saplings grow through the windows,
a wealth of rodents move in

Poem pleads, ‘Wait, wait
I can do other things—
look, this waste can become
something else useful or
I can be a call centre or, or
I can, I can sing!

but he is alone, a ghost
town echo

only the knowledge
that his wares, bobbles and
cheap lining material have traveled
the globe, filling drawers
and lost and found boxes

Poem rests, coos at the rafter
pigeons—it’s okay, everything is okay