The trees are sprayed
to give the birds
a slight shock
to avoid unwanted attacks
on the President.

Who was it that first started counting,
the first looter?
the one who stripped the dead
of their souvenirs?

We are breaking through so many illusions,
like some kind of ghost dance!
Nothing passes unmarked,
even the machines gossip.

Two powder puffs are talking
on the verandah
while helicopters mate overhead.
The laboratory of eternal sleep

tied to a cat’s tail
suffers the little children to suffer.
A ruined church, a ruined library,—
a hospital wishes it were dead.

The room is bugged,
it sucks off energy.
I don’t care for its windows anymore,
as if this piece of earth had the right,

to tear up the darkness in search of night.
It’s the days when nothing happens,
not a word is spoken,
those are the ones that can be saved.