a little piece of junk

it's a little piece of junk
there you are?
unprotected in the unforgiving light
naked on a hill of a million discarded things

the brittle light here could strip the soul down
to its last shame?
but here, amid the stubs of lightbulbs, the tyres, the cogs,
the shells of t.v.s, the bugs, the rust and the stink

without a struggle, somehow you
defy your own extinction.
you're a nonsense, a puzzling presence
where metal twists in shapes? anxious bodies make

in your destruction you are just
one small part of that great dismantled machine
in this place now where the soul itself is crushed and dumped
how utterly you feel your uses slip away

you show no sign of panic
though surely you have cause!
your body not quite gone,
you have no inner song
by which to navigate your unremembered past

it's a little piece of junk
now, here, and under this sky
you are vital now, you are defiant now,
you gleam with no prospect against? your decline and fall

every day, every hour, more junk is heaped on that hill

every day, every hour, more junk is heaped on that hill