Sweet Nothing

This poem is in response to a very powerful BBC play of the poem's title from 1990. This is an abstract word picture, an experimental poem now divorced from its subject.

raised a babel proof armature
on its prow
this alien
fleshed it from within
our future stow

he saw where they might never
use their rasps
on forhead brow
focused sea of tranquility
now in moonbeam grasp

so sing soft wailing songs to his
thinking box
a living fuel
to melt every chain
and consume each fool
the witness mocks