Forced to stay silent

Forced to stay silent
Swallow the merciless white
Pills on our countertop
Left for us by the league

Stay inside until it is over
They will say with their feet
Pressed unwavering against the door
Forced to stay inside

While outside children are dancing on flames
And cockroaches cover their faces
Like morning dew forced to show
Before the earth is ready

Forced to silliness for nourishment
Red-blue-spotted disasters all of them
On the menu every course
Defining food for coarse tongues

Animals like humans unsuited for such fare
Will flare their snouts at the thought
Of swallowing something so insignificant
So deadly or so full of trouble

As to put every conceivable world in alarm
Ringing like Icelandic singers
From out the middle of what we guessed
Was never anywhere at all

Some deft picture of the world where
If you need stitching you find it
If you need purpose weave it out of dumbness
If you need an edge to the night 

The night encompassing the thousand centers
Of the ruthless blinking of night and day
Call it radiation or some other conundrum
Then move on like it never happened

Build to the sky
Dream up angels in the penthouses
Swimming in scandals above
And insist the sky does not fall