FOR GEOLOGY

First the skeletons stampeded our rivals

& we couldn’t have been more uplifted -

all the effort they’re saving us! 

Then when the skeletons 

rounded on artists & outlaws 

we spoke from both sides of our mouths, 

mugging compassion & 

burglaring truth. 

Our backs were turned.

Our hearts grew cold.

Next the skeletons 

gunned 

for the sick & unsightly 

within our own fold. 

We, who once were one & godly, 

expelled our sick & unsightly 

& left them to die 

a torturous death all alone 

outside the fold.

At that, the skeletons, no longer required,

vamoosed in their platinum galleons, 

scything great waves in return 

to the west-of-the-sun 

with their harvest of shades.

Henceforth were we the skeletons, 

& out we fanned through hill & dale 

with gallows-on-wheels

flaying to skeletons all whom we found 

in cave or in hut

man woman or child 

til finally

everyone, most of all ourselves,

had been skeletoned, religiously.

Then, able no longer to do any other, we straightaway walled ourselves in 

to a camouflaged trench 

in the flank of a hill 

for geology.