I watch them running across the floor
hurrying out the kitchen door
a couple of hundred ants or more
and I wonder what they’re running for

the ants are busy cleaning up / the sugar round the coffee cup / the bin bags back of the catering truck / the frosting lost from the tossed / wedding cake / of the fraught call taker / the overworked undertaker / the butcher, the baker, the fake news operator / the supermarket clown with his pants falling down / throwing plastic flowers around / while the lines / of shocked shoppers / the pantomime dames and party pill poppers / the princes, paupers & live-feed gawpers / talk about the healing power of music / steroids, benzos & antibiotics / antipsychotics / while Donalds Duck & Trump / hiding in plain view top of the dump / struggle with their waterproof pumps / red, white and blue sou’westers / finally acknowledging a change in the weather / and Doctor Doonothing / shakes his head as he pulls out your stuffing / huffing & puffing / muttering some bullshit voodoo / invoking a push me pull you, fuck me, fool you / who knew? / but the effect is immediate / and hey – you paid for it / so put that in your feed and smoke it / along with that other meme / the one about the Garden of Eden / where a giant snake / more give than take / so fat the branch’ll surely break / slowly unfurls / swinging low to lick Eve’s curls / waggling comedy eyebrows / at the luscious apple hanging solo / so low / but no worries – Eve knows / always has, I suppose / she eats the snake, tosses the apple, wipes her hands & goes / cutting to a vista / of all the other shit we missed / the fossilised fish in the shale and schist / impressions of all the creatures we lost / their curly horns poking through the permafrost / the sad rise and wreck of it all / so bad even Attenborough’s blocking your calls / he knows you can’t be trusted / he knows when the floes are finally busted / and the dead rise up to be costed / you’ll be parked two abreast / on what’s left / of the inundated / demarcated / cemetery hard-standing / with as much understanding / of what just happened / as that flattened / and battered / halloween pumpkin / gaping, waiting for something / anything / an end to the rain / an end to the pain / a storm of fireworks to light the sky again

so I stand and watch as the ants trot by
in one long line to the great outside
to scatter and scavenge far and wide
the old world blazing in their compound eyes