Anne Clark Follow

We shall come
with all our wealth
and our vulgarity
into your land
carving deep wounds
in our wake
planting the sharp-edged green seed
of money
deep into your hands
and as you grasp
gasping
you will thank us
as it takes root
growing and entangling itself
around your simple naive lives
it will placate you

we shall come
hard and fast
into your under-developed
un-exploited little world
tearing away the soil
beneath your feet where you stand
scattering the broken gifts it offers up
all around us
digging the foundations of our own image
into the raw core belly of the earth
send spiralling monuments
to our glorious achievements
into the heavy leaden sky

you will watch from the horizon
imprisoned by your own pleasures
bound by the material chains
we will supply
and when we have turned
one side of the world's face
from the sun into the blackness
the other will then burn
under the slap of our greed.