Defunct

By Graeme AR Eddolls

Scrap heaps are pretty beautiful, right?
They allow the remoulding of bodies
Out of sight
Out of mind
From those functioning psychopaths
That claim they would never be in such a bind
Unlike those
Functionally useless
Once a crime's committed
Even acquitted 
It doesn’t matter
Because you are not fitted for this world

He’s not allowed to dream
Because of what our culture deems
As unfathomable dysfunction
Beyond repair
To be banished to walk in despair
This lonely earth
With no purpose from birth
Reinforced like the twisting bars
Suffocating that glistening sweat
As antithesis to the needs never met
Of an underclass crushed in the pestle of life

But variety is the spice, right?
So why then is the fight
As long as those bitter winter nights
Staining our morals indelible
Like the ink from the Governor’s pen
“A mighty sword through the hearts of cold men”
They’d tell us 
Only to snuff out our family
And smear the blood on our lens

Scrap heaps are pretty beautiful, right?
Why even remould what’s not broken?
Flip the idea of that tokenism
Right on its head
And smash the blood-bursting norms
And dismantle the forms
Of oppression
To detonate those walls of impression
Those doves will fly again
Those doves will fly again

Originally from Scotland but now based in DC, Graeme has worked as an experimental astrophysicist for over 10 years alongside his community activism and organising, predominantly around anti-racism and migrant rights.