sounding an alarm

2023
Nour Hussein

"...the high command has existed for all eternity, and the decision to build the wall likewise."

- Franz Kafka

Excuse me, Miss? I don’t mean to alarm you, but
towards you creeps the hydraulic wall, teethed with spikes, and
before you towers the diamond mountain.
No, there is no going around — past East and West spans the rock & the hard place.
There is only a burrowing-through, or a climbing-over. Your pick
is as good as mine.
 
Now everybody knows, of course, that no stone tool can mine diamond block
(& may we thank generous God for an abundance of both).
See there the gunboat diplomacy of the diamond mountain,
see how it negotiates the stone pick and
shatters it dead on contact.
Behind you, teethed spikes gleam.
 
Sir? Please excuse me, I don’t mean to scare you, but if you’d just look this way for a second you’ll
see the hydraulic wall
send shivers down the earth’s spine and
in your way, the diamond mountain towers.
No, there is no going around, there is only fight, flight, or freeze (& may we thank wise God for the absence of wings)

Now everybody remembers, of course, how they shrewdly had the front door and the elevator removed when they bought the diamond mountain and deepened the moat and armed the alarms and solicited hired guns and appointed The General head of security because
— because it’s a mountain made of diamonds, and minimum wage is jack shit an hour, and from up there they can’t see the impaled in the breeze limbs
swaying
swaying
swaying on the hydraulic wall, teethed with spikes.
And they own all the planes.
 
Friend please I’m sorry I don’t mean to upset you but please I beg your eyes
I beg your ears
for just a moment, for just a moment
lend me your hand;
put your head together with mine: somebody led us here and forgot to teach us how to leave.
Do you hear the scraping? Do you hear that hydraulic chuckle?
I don’t know how to turn it off either.
 
No. There is no going around.
 
Towards us creeps the hydraulic wall, teethed with spikes and
before us towers the diamond mountain.
 
……DIG!!