Empathy for a Coke Can
Secret beauty in a kicking can
Bent in the middle, twisted hope.
Vessel for change, can you hear me rattling
Under each roundhouse flush with pressure?
Gethsemane for bruises. Call me ugly
And watch me blossom. Think me a waste
And watch me grow useful. Chameleon grace
Undoes your binary thinking.
Your easy reductionist
Seductions. I will transubstantiate
Your easy hate into a new religion
For one. Call me tin man. Hear me break
And gather strength the way strained muscle can.
I am no longer yours to drink from
Crushed under your clammy fingers;
unfit for work.
Or working in the way you think work works.
Observe - take one perfectly ordinary can,
Drink it dry, fold it under your palm
Smile wryly and throw it away
Glorying in the destruction of a thing
To prove that you exist. To prove to God
That you can take his fashionable belligerent
Indifference and build on it, and so the world
Is your concrete garden, where your broken children
Beg for a mercy they never receive.
Is this strength? What have you built strength on?
Can you build? Are you sure? Are you frightened?
Where is your pride reflected in our faces?
In our broken, ugly faces? Aren't we beautiful to you?
Kick the can. Ask yourself no questions.
For thine is the kingdom, we serve at your pleasure.
Split open. Upended. Half-men.
Bent in the middle, twisted hope.
Vessel for change, can you hear me rattling
Under each roundhouse flush with pressure?
Gethsemane for bruises. Call me ugly
And watch me blossom. Think me a waste
And watch me grow useful. Chameleon grace
Undoes your binary thinking.
Your easy reductionist
Seductions. I will transubstantiate
Your easy hate into a new religion
For one. Call me tin man. Hear me break
And gather strength the way strained muscle can.
I am no longer yours to drink from
Crushed under your clammy fingers;
unfit for work.
Or working in the way you think work works.
Observe - take one perfectly ordinary can,
Drink it dry, fold it under your palm
Smile wryly and throw it away
Glorying in the destruction of a thing
To prove that you exist. To prove to God
That you can take his fashionable belligerent
Indifference and build on it, and so the world
Is your concrete garden, where your broken children
Beg for a mercy they never receive.
Is this strength? What have you built strength on?
Can you build? Are you sure? Are you frightened?
Where is your pride reflected in our faces?
In our broken, ugly faces? Aren't we beautiful to you?
Kick the can. Ask yourself no questions.
For thine is the kingdom, we serve at your pleasure.
Split open. Upended. Half-men.
--
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Nathan was born in Blackpool in 1989 and has been writing ‘poems’ since the age of 7. He attained an MA in Modern Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast in 2012. Since then he’s won several poetry slams, and most recently been published in Waterways Ireland’s ‘Reflections 2’ journal.