"Bound," "Endings," and "Warmth"

Bound

They have handcuffed
our country, given it away
in exchange for money,
or renown, fame, an
ever-sloping speaking circuit.
 
If they'd even bartered it
for those countries yet
to be bound with steel
imported from other lands,
that would be something,
such places lasting longer
than money ever could.
 
But no, and now,
we are bound, soon
to be disappeared,
while the key to our shackles
is left hanging on a rusted nail
beside the only door
known to lead elsewhere,
in sight, but
out of reach,
a final insult
in false honour​
of our docile stupidity,
none of us realising​
that as bound as we are
our mouths have been left uncovered.

Endings

Must the manifold moans
of the world
shudder the stained air
before we will listen?
Or do those outtakes of pain
need to issue
from our own mouths
for us to notice
the end that is coming,
 
the end that has been
so relentlessly coming
for more years
than too few of us
are willing to admit
outside the concrete confines
of our air-conditioned dreams?

Warmth

I would rather go cold
than burn words,
says the man
living in his cave,
alone, save for
the words at his fingertips,
and the worlds
in his head,
some his, most born
from the minds of others;
 
his nights are cold,
but when sleeps comes,
as it sometimes does,
his dreams are warm,
 
his dreams
are warm, and full of lives
worth dying for.