Pondering on the news that a massive tanker (The Sanchi)

is ablaze and may explode after colliding with a cargo ship 300 kms from Shanghai

An odourless colourless

poisonous threat

prepares to explode

within my flat screen

state of the art

TV set.

And so:

I press the pause button

to make more tea

and cut a slice more cake

as one million barrels

boil and burn and smoke most

thickly

in some indistinct

East China sea.

Tis but a tiny drop

a mere tanker-load

to invisibly

decimate

Korean fish stock and

Shanghai landscape.

A mere monumental blip

to the sailing of the seas

to satiate this first world grip

of post festive need

for us to drive the last mile

to pile up 50% off

bargain bucket guff

from city centre shops, themselves, poor things

struggling to conceive

new ways to re-package

old shit and to sell more

ever more

to those ever ready

to be completely

overstuffed with overheated

greed.

And while our thwarted desires

burn endlessly in some far off

China sea

online search engines

continue to earn invisible billions

by filling hundreds of thousands

or maybe millions of brown boxes

with polystyrene chips and tiny

incidental gifts

automatically sent

while we are otherwise engaged

by the underperforming underpaid

self-employed diesel waged

carriers

who once more

fly poste-haste

to drop tomorrows ‘hot’

unwanted waste

outside our neighbours closed front door.