CORONIC IRRIGATION

CORONIC IRRIGATION

In Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen

It is the character of Ozymandias who recruits

An island’s worth of supposedly disappeared

Artists to construct and describe Armageddon,

As he perfects the destruction he wishes

To unleash on the world. Seen as the antagonist

Of the tale, the book is really his all too graphic

Novel, as the troubled heroes he faces are selected

To fail and unfurl. Dr Manhattan, of course,

Is in a quite different story; that of a God’s:

The supernatural conclusion of the fanciful

Superman myth Moore evolves. The book tells

Of an experiment on mankind by an unkind man,

Stripped of feeling. I am wondering if anyone

Hears the echoes of such a dystopian dream

No day solves. On the Dominic Cummings

Website he has posted an active call for recruitment.

Policy experts are needed. Great Project Managers,

And assorted ‘Weirdos’, oddly, to work inside a new

And clearly Uncivil Service as if the joint challenge

Of Brexit in the Coronic Age seeks cleansed truths.

An unusual set of people are sought to become his

Officials. Misfits with strange skills features strongly.

He seems much in favour of them. For what is described

As ‘low hanging fruit’ lines the streets, ‘Trillion-dollar bills

for the taking’ Between the frontiers of science

And prediction, there will be institutes of decision;

Ministries of both truth and pretence. As I read it,

I’m chilled. And not just by the weirdoes. But by this

Dark unveiling that blisters up and out through

The screen. Cummings seems to say on this site

That he wants to make ‘me’ less important, as

Apparently, he is working beyond the targets

That form his own hit and miss. And this is the man

At the top who wants to recreate Moreau’s Island.

I’d hate to defame other writers by saying

That the fictions they conceived tremoured this.

Including HG Wells. But this is real. Make no

Mistake. And its horror. In supposedly serving

The people Cummings is crafting a new kind

Of skeleton ship, that sails and sets the sliced

Shore against a cataclysmic horizon, in which

Performance trumps human and totally destroys

Reason’s grip. There is a sense of eradication

To this; a call for a strange breed, an Army.

It is a signal flare sent in secret, despite it being

Seen here online, He talks of ‘thermoacoustic systems’,

And ‘spads’ and ‘statistical ML forecasting’

‘Spatiotemporally Chaotic Systems’ and Computing

Approach Reservoirs. Jargon? Hidden Code,

Or a new hieroglyphic in which the true future

Is hidden inside a different Holocaust for this time.

Things need to be rearranged and reset and

Reconstituted. It will be the language of Maths

They’ll be using, communicating no doubt through

Percent. He needs ‘Unusual Economists’, too, in order

To shift the mark that’s in money and doubtless force

It to revalue the wait and the worth of what’s spent.

Which will be our whole past. With none saved

As the Cummings Currency fractions futures.

The mixture of blandery and intention is like a knife

In the mind, a heart blast. From undecipherable lines

To a chattiness that churns stomachs, Cummings craves

It all quickly; ‘Great Project Managers’ who can shuffle

Or shovel us up at great speed. If you are a company

Who can turn ‘the A1 north of Newcastle into a dual carriageway’

If you are a destructive force, Cummings wants you.

His Masterplan is obscene. He states that as there’ll be

No election for years and so many digital changes,

There is the chance now to run things in a completely

Different way. It foretells of an almost chemical

Change, in which the flesh will fall loosely to reveal

The carved plastic of every soul and heart he’d replace.

A plan has been laid. Which he is busily implementing.

This is Man as Invasion. And he represents none of you.

He was not elected. Just sought by someone

Only interested in power. The Politics is

The process from which you can then sup wine

Or maybe just Newcastle Brown from a skull.

As of now, they tread grapes and stuff

The Genie back in its bottle. There will be

No more wishes. There will be only the whinge

And whine of the culled. This is no longer

About being sacked. This is about what he’s doing.

And as long as there’s Boris, and the Matt

And Moggs, he’ll go on. Pressing the past

Until the shit rivers from us. A Coronic

Irrigation across a shattered human

Landscape in which the excreted

Will learn to forget freedom’s song.

David Erdos May 29th 2020

For more poems from David Erdos visit The Corona Diaries collection 

David Erdos is an actor, writer, director with over 300 professional credits. He is a published poet, playwright, essayist and illustrator. He has lectured on all disciplines in theatre and film for leading performing arts colleges, schools and universities around the world. His books include EASY VERSES FOR DIFFICULT TIMES, THE SCAR ON THE CLOUD, OIL ON SILVER, NEWS FROM MARS, CHANGING PLACES WITH LIGHT (penniless press) and BYZANTIUM with the photographer Max Reeves. He is a contributing editor for The International Times and maker of documentaries all over the world. David’s work has been acclaimed by many leading figures including Harold Pinter, Heathcote Williams, Alan Moore, Andrew Kotting, Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair in whose recent book THE LAST LONDON, David features. He can be reached at David.erdos@sky.com.

David Erdos

©    David Erdos has asserted his moral rights as author of his work and has full copyright.