All one day dream of Iceland,
"Instant cold compress"
For what ails you,
For the excesses of
Neo-liberal capitalism.
Homeland of geo-thermal wonders,
Of lost races and dashed hopes,
Did Britain extract
Endless futures in exchange
For repatriating their guilt?
Iceland, home of sonic warriors,
Screwed by multinational capital,
Hard turn Left after hard times,
Sanctuary for Julian Assange
And all who might aspire to conspire.
Land of miracles and dissembling truths,
Land not of ice but eternal springs,
Land of possibilities and brightening airs,
Amid the wreckage of the new imperialism,
The farcical games of clutching naifs.
Iceland (not Greenland) pleases,
Hanging there is marking time,
In the light wonders of endless light,
Offset by the unspeakable night,
Beset by woes wholly unnecessary.
Benighted land of landscapes shorn
By glaciers, warriors, missionaries,
And the new gladiators, lance in hand,
Denuded land of perspicacity.
Mythical land of tarnished dreams,
Fouled by smelly finance capital,
Bedecked in giant-headed fishes,
And which rots first, after all,
From the head down?
Iceland, midway between here and there,
I will visit you soon,
To idle in that idleness of
Hastening slowly,
Never to spoil your secret.
Iceland, land of Cyclopean bankers,
Of middling managers and untimely volcanoes,
Of barren streaks of absolute beauty,
I’ll trade this poem
For dual citizenship.
GK (08/02/10)