The near-carcass of civilization’s remains,
wallowing in the waste its terminal thrashing creates,
will hardly notice a few scraps taken-
though to voice the act will leave others shaken.
One need only to pillage sedately, head down,
and remember: all of this will someday end.

The pale criminal thrives here as legion:
a hobbyist, a collector of things,
a connoisseur of excess, defiling every void;
all of it front and center. The barbed wire above trenches,
hiding the war that scurries like rats,
in the dark crevices beneath line of sight,
dressed to kill, but unwilling to die for it.

Protection comes instead from abundance,
quantity over quality, foaming out the pores
in a thick film of condescension
that they hoist over the thin, translucent skin,
between the fading life inside and the world confronted;
the near-carcass of civilization’s remains.