Unsurviving Poem by Paata Shamugia

Even if my Lord defends the city,
the vigilance of the watchman is pointless—
nobody will survive.
Houses will be set on fire,
roads will sway,
all infants will climb out of their cradles
and kill themselves in front of people
because
nobody will survive.

The legs will start to melt on the one who is treading the long way
and a man half-buried in his own limbs
can't be saved by anyone;
snakes will flourish in our beds
and the split tongues will sprout from the walls,
and they will tell everything
that was inappropriate to talk about before.
The vigilance of a watchman,
the vigilance of mothers is pointless—
nobody will survive.

Fortune-tellers won't be able to read any palms,
readers won't be able to read any poems,
worshippers won't be able to read any prayers,
politicians won't talk so loudly,
instead they will cough and throw their bleeding tonsils away—
nobody will survive.

Plane trees will sprout leaves of cement,
passengers will lose their shadows,
words will be as heavy as stones,
our mouths will be fed up with stones
and our shadows will murmur in our place.
Nobody will survive.

All baby-sitters will abandon the babies,
with rifles carried across their shoulders they are shaped as crosses
and bless everybody in sight with a bullet
(as for the already dead, they will get their blessings
discharged just in case) —
nobody,
nobody,
nobody will survive.

Even the one likely to survive
will not survive at all,
because nobody will survive
the most severe intersection
of reason and result,
a fatal attack of
happiness and accidentality.
Nobody will survive.

It was wrong to believe
they would fathom the reasons,
provide themselves with alibis
or make arrangements.
The vigilance of the watchman is pointless,
in vain as the vigilance of cities,
meaningless as the vigilance of parents,
doing anything is like chasing the wind,
nobody,
nobody,
nobody will survive.