Market Forces
When there was less, it was easier to tell
a story about why there wasn’t enough.
Inside the lion’s emptiness, the zebra’s;
inside the zebra’s, the field’s; inside that,
the sky’s. In the age of sieges, you could
draw a circle around a city and, just like that,
boost the cost of flour. And doors’ futures.
In the age of abstractions, a market force
can not be demoed in dominoes. Instead
the tongues of our sneakers tell tales.
In all of them, the capital of capital
is a city impossible to besiege. It moves,
after all, all the barons and pirates
setting up shop over and over, halfway
between a zeitgeist and the latest fad.
a story about why there wasn’t enough.
Inside the lion’s emptiness, the zebra’s;
inside the zebra’s, the field’s; inside that,
the sky’s. In the age of sieges, you could
draw a circle around a city and, just like that,
boost the cost of flour. And doors’ futures.
In the age of abstractions, a market force
can not be demoed in dominoes. Instead
the tongues of our sneakers tell tales.
In all of them, the capital of capital
is a city impossible to besiege. It moves,
after all, all the barons and pirates
setting up shop over and over, halfway
between a zeitgeist and the latest fad.
Shambles & Sons
One way to sum us up—all of us, I mean--
is to survey the mess we’ve made.
I’m not saying there’s nothing lovely left.
I’m saying that in Europe there are fields
where buttercups know not to breach
the rims of bomb craters and in Antarctica
there are birds who don’t know bottlecaps
from clams. And while it’s impossible
to know how it started—Shambles & Sons--
whether as an observatory or armory, Adam
died a factotum: zookeeper, embalmer,
architect, priest. Well, from there we took
on a life of our own. We took lives. We gave
birth. And suddenly there were
middens and archives, caesars and towers,
electricity, antiquities, theaters, mines.
Before we knew it, Earthshine
was a movie we’d projected on the moon.
We said humankind was too big to fail.
Rash Shambles, we said the sun
would never set on the Anthropocene.
is to survey the mess we’ve made.
I’m not saying there’s nothing lovely left.
I’m saying that in Europe there are fields
where buttercups know not to breach
the rims of bomb craters and in Antarctica
there are birds who don’t know bottlecaps
from clams. And while it’s impossible
to know how it started—Shambles & Sons--
whether as an observatory or armory, Adam
died a factotum: zookeeper, embalmer,
architect, priest. Well, from there we took
on a life of our own. We took lives. We gave
birth. And suddenly there were
middens and archives, caesars and towers,
electricity, antiquities, theaters, mines.
Before we knew it, Earthshine
was a movie we’d projected on the moon.
We said humankind was too big to fail.
Rash Shambles, we said the sun
would never set on the Anthropocene.
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Jane Zwart's poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Poetry Review (UK), Moth (IRL), and Threepenny Review, as well as other journals and magazines. Along with Timothy Liu, she is the co-editor of book reviews at Plume.
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