Smoking a ciggy

Smoking a ciggy

atop a Saint Petersburg roof in summer,

tonight’s best friends are beside me

—our rucksacks sharing a room a few streets down.

Cathedrals stretch towards a sunset

that just can’t get itself to pierce the day.

But just now,

at this very moment,

my chest begins to ache.

This is old news

—the doctor back in Adelaide said it’s nothing;

said it’s just a chronic strain and not a sick heart.

But sometimes the gut

knows more than the doc.

I know, too, that my grandmother’s sick heart

took her before she had the chance to feel

my own beat.

Yet whether or not I’m really dying sooner than I’d like

or the body’s simply reminding me

that either way I’m dying

one day,

it’s not a heartbreaking kind of prompt.

More than anything

it’s just a reminder to live

whilst alive

as I chance these ciggies                 

atop a Petersburg roof

with tonight’s best friends beside me.

Don't talk

Don't talk of gender
or of sex.
Don't talk of science
at all events.

Don't talk of him.
Don't talk of me.
Don't stand for
masculinity.

Don't talk ideas.
Don't ask for proof.
Don't be so brash
to ask for truth.

Don't talk of drugs
or family.
Just bark the word
"Equality!"

Don't talk free speech
or liberty.
Just bark the word
"Diversity!"

Don't talk about
South Africa.
You shut your mouth!
Don't act bizarre.

Don't talk about
the media
or Marxist
academia.

Don't think it through.
Don't be that chump.
Just sing along
to "I hate Trump!"

Just do what you're
supposed to do.
You know the drill.
There is no you.

There is no God.
There was no Fall.
In fact, you'd best
not talk at all.