OZET

Texts

The Smuggler

If the rye still grew
at least
the people would have rye.
When something’s scarce,
the people brood
on what else they don’t have,
and what they’ve got
they’re hot to trade.

Take this guitar
made on Earth
from Baltic birch
nineteen generations back:
dream you had a father
and he gave it to you
like his father gave it to him.
Very nice.
A teacher hocked
for ten bars of soap,
tea and jam.
You can bet he’s got a woman
in his sights.

Look around son,
ain’t that hard to see:
things weren’t as bad as they are
well
they’d be worse for me.

Long nights of hunger,
days bored and dry.
They had to stop the wind last week.

Hard to keep your hands clean
when you’ve got to bury your stash.
I’ve been sent up twice:
Lost seven years and
I won’t count
the opportunities.
Each time they let me out
I leave another cache behind:
naked lady playing cards,
a vial of opium tincture
bricked inside a cell wall.

You have to know your customers.
You have to know the footpaths through the forest.
You have to know which ducts have loose covers.
You have to know the value
of patina and perfume.

Look around son,
ain’t that hard to see:
things weren’t as bad as they are
well
they’d be worse for me.

Can’t say what happened.
The crops just die
for lack of something in the soil
that once was there.
Now it’s gone.