Tuesday Poem: Above Armageddon

Above Armageddon

From the mezzanine, Armageddon SF convention, Wellington, 2008

In my day

there was less money to be parted from.

Now this whole place

is a trading floor,

awash in cash, cleavage,

cosplay and testosterone.

*

Jesus, cross in hand,

blesses the sellers of Devil Dice.

Japanese Death in a long white wig

totes his scythe past stands of PS3s.

John Rhys Davies' booming voice

echoes from a distant room.

*

The reef fish of the market

swim before my eyes.

My son goes darting

among the channeled shoals.

Where will all this money

wash up, do you think, in the end?


Credit note: This poem appeared in my collection Men Briefly Explained (IP, 2011) and Kathleen Jones kindly published it as a Tuesday Poem on her blog in 2015.

Tim says: There were two science fiction conventions on in Wellington at Queen's Birthday Weekend. I took part in a poetry panel at the non-commercial one, Au Contraire, but the bigger of the two was Armageddon, which has been running for a good few years now. It's big and loud, and when I went there with my son in 2008, I couldn't cope, so sat up in the mezzanine writing the poem above.

In other news, I have finished my teaching commitments at Whitireia Polytech for the year - which should mean I have more time to post here.