geiger counters require batteries

the bombs went off
a long time ago
i’ve lost track of when
of where i am, where we are

everything’s gone
things i never knew
were around all along
supporting me, taking care of me

gangs roam, have always ravaged
countrysides women resources peoples
warlords & strongmen & chieftans
with clubs & swords emerge always

psychopaths shoot first
& the earth inherits the naive
in drips & drops & bloody chunks
hide like a rabbit, frightened child

learn to shoot a gun, frightened child
kill captors who’ve taken childhood away
revenge the negligent parents
who let light slip from our hands

i keep hoping it’ll get better
the only thing i’m living for
hoping to see people be love again
hoping to see streetlights & cops

when the bombs went off
i was another person
turning tricks, lifting wallets
hard, i thought, tough as nails

i was on a date & a bomb goes off
a long way away & he sez
where’s my wife & kids & runs
leaves me by the road, nowhere

i walked for miles on bleeding feet
carload of crazy gun-waving men
grabs me up -- she’s the entertainment
& off we go looking for enemies

ten years spent that way
traded from one group to another
on-call twenty-four / seven
i didn’t own myself anymore

one day we did it, we comfort women
we mowed them all down with their own guns
we divvied the spoils, freed the slaves
& set out to find security

i took the geiger counter
the land is poisoned all around us
& we’d like to know if we’ll die soon
but geiger counter’s need batteries

no factories produce no goods
no businesses offer no services
it’s all gone -- no bullets for our guns
no batteries for our geiger counters

we’re sick -- is it radiation? hunger?
food poisoning? we die -- from what?
no doctors to tend us, we nurse ourselves
was there something here before?

copyright 2006 by Kia Gabrielle McLean