Under Cover of Darkness
A parasitic mycoform: a host poem progressively colonised by new language that grows through the existing material, without replacing it, infecting its language and meaning. This iterative process repeats until a new poem is produced in which host and parasite become completely enmeshed.
*
Over bodies and cries a man rises from earth. Tradition breaking. One man shaking. Strength over land.
**
Over black boots against bodies and commands over cries, an old man carried away. Sun rises from earth, caught in gum trees. Men turn on an ancient site. The law used. An ancient tradition breaking. One old man shaking another. Physical strength over wisdom and the land beneath.
***
Under cover of darkness, muscles and moustaches in black boots push against bodies and turf out tents, barking commands over cries. Red lights blink on television cameras as an old, bearded man is carried away in cuffs. A yellow sun rises from red earth into black, fluttering on a flag caught in floodlights between gum trees. By daylight men in suits turn over earth, breaking ground on an ancient site, ignoring the laws of the land old and new as excavators loiter on disused fairways, their buckets still bare. The renewal of an ancient tradition breaking laws even older. One old, bearded man shaking the hand of another. A man who questioned the value of physical strength over wisdom before choosing poison and the land beneath him over exile.
****
Under cover of darkness, muscles and moustaches in black boots push against bodies and turf out tents, barking commands over cries. Red lights blink on television cameras as an old, bearded man is carried away in cuffs. A yellow sun rises from red earth into black, fluttering on a flag caught in floodlights between gum trees. By daylight men in suits turn over earth, breaking ground on an ancient site, ignoring the laws of the land old and new as excavators loiter on disused fairways, their buckets still bare. The renewal of an ancient tradition breaking laws even older. One old, bearded man shaking the hand of another. A man who questioned the value of physical strength over wisdom before choosing poison and the land beneath him over exile.
