CICADA – A Poem

Words: Michael Callanan
Artwork: Michael Callanan

I’ve been snorting crushed cicada shells to feel more down to earth

They left my third eye stinging with a vision of my birth

Red compacted clay amidst decaying planet trash

I climbed out of the ground up on a branch now turned to ash

Hummed my first word in the form of question – no reply

That violent silent echo will be ringing ’til I die

I felt the surface tension and the nervous gasping air

I heard the planet sobbing in the midst of deep despair

And so I forced my transmutation into human form

Just so that I could hug the fuck out of this rock we’re on

I’m sorry that we’ve treated you like you don’t feel a thing

The truth is we your children are still learning how to sing

In harmony with all the songs you’ve tried to make us hear

We’ve moved away from nature when we should have held you near

To find harmonic balance with your frequencies majestic

We didn’t hear your song or cries

Or hear your magnum opus ending

I’m extending my condolences to future generations

From now ’til the Sun explodes and causes mass disintegration

I’m not sorry that these thoughts are sad and morbid, maybe suck

But if we don’t do more than nothing then we’ll all be surely fucked

And more than nothing starts with ‘something’

And that ‘something’ could make all

The goddamn difference to us stalling this fast rate at which we fall

For me my ‘something’s’ not always the clearest most apparent thing

But I’m just trying to hear the planets’ song and like cicadas

Sing