natty dubs

 

I like wine tastings because it’s fun to feel my principles collapse

under the weight of a single hour of luxury. Same reason I like hotels

 

with high thread count sheets. A decent pillow. Sometimes I imagine

myself so unbothered, my tongue laden with a sweet oyster foam.

 

Two pet nats down and I’m trying to convince a stranger

of the benefits of automated luxury hedonism. I keep telling them

 

about the machinations of the modern Church of Satan;

sure Baphomet’s had some bad press but you’ve got to see past that.

 

Someone asks what defines a natural wine and we all laugh.

Fucking dickhead. Everyone knows it’s the taste of peach pit,

 

foot bottom, burnt orange rind, sweat on the upper lip;

organic wines aren’t necessarily natural, it’s more of a vibe.

 

Every time the sommelier says terroir (high, cliffside, red soil)

I think terror think the last water on earth drawn up into this grape.

 

 

what we talk about when we talk about the end of the world 

parking lots, paving stones, peonies pushing through some crack in the tarmac // counting crows, counting crows circling overhead, counting on someone to tell you that the collective noun for crows is murder // everyone you love dead except you: everyone you love dead // bacchanalia, brave boys, bodies piled // winter (nuclear), winter (permanent) // all my friends obsessed with the weather, a wind station set up in the garden, a barometer for pressure, a barometer for sentiment // Vonnegut’s human platypus // I think the world probably won’t end, I think probably we’ll end and it’ll sort itself out // mars (colony), mars (terraformed), mars (uninhabitable) // some guy out the back of a house party with a vape and can of K // perms, permafrost, permanent damage // dunes of sand that stretch for miles and miles and miles // the beachboys on the radio forever // zoonotic disease, zealotry  // xenormorphs trembling awake under the melting ice // lucky for us that the implications of this are so huge we’ll never be able to properly comprehend them // north (true), north (magnetic) // responsibility (personal), responsibility (corporate) // for fuck’s sake man it doesn’t matter if I leave the light on anymore // god // just so // relentless // how the sun looked through the smog on those last days, hollow almost // uranium (234), uranium (235), uranium (238) // karyotype, king shit, kingfishers slowly disappearing from the UK’s waterways, knotweed (raucous) growing to fill all the gaps we left // your hand (warm) in mine // our eyes shut tight, our skin alight, our prayers // quiet //