THE WORLD WRAPS ITSELF AROUND A TELEGRAPH POLE Just as inevitably the sun rises, goes down. After the nattering of warheads there will be no cruel faces of traffic. There will be nothing new under the sun for the lucky ones without children to shoot. It’s very simple, events just overwhelm any umpires about. The first and most remarkable thing unnoticed is that those who survive are the perpetrators of crime. There’s no celestial audit. Only the lucky ones of necessity after the dust settles. How romantic it will be then to mould a new world from our bunkers. We’ll do it from memory rather than life. There will be nothing new under the sun. It’s safe here so let’s celebrate what the wars do. To persecute the simplest of beliefs here there are pictures of us preparing for war. Hiding behind hills and shaky floorboards, trying out the uniforms. Bowing down before a future all worn out with being known. We are determinism’s new devotees although the future is ours just as once it was Germany’s. And the sun rises, goes down. From memory rather than life when the madness stops and starts all the paraphernalia, made up minds. Then the siren sounds the dull thrum missiles overhead. Catches us at a table with lists of what to do for Armageddon. Counting out endless supplies in case – medications, alcohol, air pumps and tinned food, biscuits. It’s exciting, it’s romantic. It’s safe here so let’s celebrate what the wars do. Pity for the hapless locals of the slow countries there is a dull ache, a prayer said over a flag in the classroom corner. Here are the side effects of love, the outside air on the video thick with wailing. In the village clearing it goes on, the fond remembrance of defoliants. They’re burning the huts and the people. There’s a pall of blood red smoke above it all. Rubble and dust are the kindest things. This is how we transcend the political. It’s safe here. After charity when the big fire comes let’s celebrate how the head feels no longer being patted. Enough will survive the metronome’s dry finale, the manic rush for seats. Then the jerky dance of automatons, a slow progress between craters, arms caches where the body not there at all will cry out for napalm. Enough will survive this fond nostalgia, remember nothing. Already outside the economy is picking up like volume on a record player. In from the landscape a dull ache around the area of the brain where nationalism found a niche. And it’s safe here to have been in so many great cities which are the cost of careless talk. It’s as zany as catholicism, as pointless as the reformation. To have history think well of us when we stop the world to get off. At that precise point. It’s almost a miracle but we’re not there to edge forward from the flash, perturb the minds of children, find bricks to start again. So let’s celebrate what the wars do. Then money will fall from the sky. The means of production on dozens of waiting planets. KK next>

this is the speech of my hands poetry by Christopher (Kit) Kelen and Steven Schroeder | images by Kit Kelen