"20/20 vision" and "Death in the City"
20/20 vision
tired I’s
of following / drastic
measures one-size-
fits-all / measurements undefined
blind-
folded away
kidnapped milestones
in kilometres any way
all destinations turn right
RIGHT
THIS WAY
ONE-WAY DEAD-END
accelerating fast
into a bend
blind-
moving goal-
posts / waving flag-white signs
walking upside-down
on our hands-
on / shifting sands
STOP
spinning
GO
OPEN
no,
WAIT,
we’re CLOSED, mind
The Gap
seeing double
standards not standardised
laws not laid
down / rights not right
and all the while
doing right / by
rulers not straight
humans
inhumane.
Death in the City
They drove you to the stores
but didn’t let you park
They fattened you up on Coca-Cola
but didn’t let you in the bathroom
You suffocated on tailpipe fumes
and drowned in your own piss
They didn’t provide a coffin.
Roy Duffield is a writer, poet and translator from the working class, and an editor over at Anti-Heroin Chic, a journal that puts those on the outside inside. He is a winner of the Robert Allen Micropoem Contest (2021), was honoured to be chosen to read his work at the 2019 Beat Literary Festival in Barcelona, and his words have recently been spotted entering such nefarious establishments as Into the Void, Untitled: Voices, Flights, and The London Reader's issue on Counterculture. Roy recommends EMERGENCY.
