David Adès
David Adès is the author of Mapping the World (Wakefield Press / Friendly Street Poets, 2008), the chapbook Only the Questions Are Eternal (Garron Publishing, 2015) and Afloat in Light (UWA Publishing, 2017).
Photograph: Anne Henshaw
Life is Elsewhere
~ Milan Kundera
else the universe removes its cloak of dark matter and reveals
the strings of stars lying behind it
else the universe is not the universe at all but another and another
else the road taken is not one but many
and the road not taken is multiples of many
else life is smoke and mirrors behind which other lives
else wind is a giant hand brushing away
clouds of anger
else love is a prized toy, too easily discarded
else our eyes see and see nothing,
we walk, oblivious, in quicksand
else story is whisper, horizon, clouds piling up and up
else nothing is truth except lies,
told and untold,
where the volcano shifts and rumbles
where the girl hides inside herself,
where the words are spoken into the air
where everything is forsaken for love
where expediency trumps morality,
where politics outweighs compassion
where the wave of indifference is a tsunami
where the damaged and wounded
walk invisibly among us
where everyone speaks and no one is heard
where denial subverts and distorts truth,
where rationalisations deny accountability
where we cannot support the weight of our hypocrisy
where we fail to overcome the litany
of our failures.