Popular Demand

These few deep strongholds. Each with generator,
Provisions, dossiers. It would seem the worst
Has happened, who knows how—essential data
Lost in the bright, chromosome-garbling burst.

You, Comrade, will indefinitely be resident
Of this one, with your disciplined women and staff;
You and yours of this one, Mr. President.
Grim huddles. Then a first, uncertain laugh

—Spirits reviving, as life’s bound to do?
Not from dead land, waste water, sulphur sky.
Nowhere is anything both alive and blue
Except, inside your block heads, the mind’s eye

Marveling up out of our common grave:
You never thought… Sincerely didn’t think…
Who gave it clearance? It ransacks the cave
For you with cordial venom. Damn you, drink!