Overton Hump Poem by jim hogg

Oh scamps from trees and water worlds
your long division sons are here
we've crept and swerved and drove the front
or so we think, but here we are

we're niftier at nothing now
except the game of self deceit
unbag our shames and let the rains
begin to give us teeth we'll need

for nights of blood and meagre scraps
when fear will stew priorities
to nothing more than this or that
as babble, bungle, bauchle lunge

but how the hell did this arise
the dream of life won't be denied
beyond our words is everything
the crevices are wedgeable

and while we're in the cushioned stands
the splitters work to bully through
and we will be as fossil ferns
or paltry flood inside ourselves

within the smash and tickle tide
we're authorising everyday
'dear cuckoos, take our worlds and tat'
'oh cuckoos, no, we love your plans'

the window drifts and yet we sit
I hear the wings that beat the night
the winds that blew us birds from bones
will come from Venus and from Mars

and won't be satisfied until
their freedoms snuff the feeble flame
that lifts, and bang it down for keeps
before they kill each other off

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