James Goldsworthy

New Krypton
After Superman: Brainiac

  Survivors / spared / on spangled shores / rescued
for the sake of refuge / homeland lost / long lost
for how long / who could say? / stars are shimmers
in domed refractions / to count the days / is to count
their hours / stormed in siege / and cosmic ruin / seismic
rumbles rocked a bottle city loose / return? no chance
former soil / poison now / mere radiance / or tokens
​of remote existence / we choose not to understand / alien 
and are the stories true? / can a planet detonate by the
stirring of its mantle? / can it peel / at its foundations
and blister out of shape? / or are these people
these "people" / liars? / "refugees" / or Our Real Enemies?
they turn their noses up / at our way of life / for we are all
but welcoming / of strangers from a strange land
families were separated by some kind of invisible wall   
familiar likenesses / but whose oneness / can't be caught
in mirrors / still we wield / our magnifiers / storm their
homes /stone their brothers / fathers / young / for what?
to prove their threat / "heat vision"? / one hundred-
thousand voices raised / and just as many quieted
for they / not us / not I / set innocents alight / and
threaten from the skies / promised "truth" and "justice"
are lies / when only foreigners make bombs / right? 

It is alien / in principle / that when once miniscule
we send for amnesty with haste / but once enlarged
​once rescued , freed / the dome lifts / for fear to it replace.

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James Goldsworthy is an emerging writer and third-year creative writing student, who enjoys anything starring Jake Gyllenhaal, all three pacific Real Housewives series, and Wedgwood decorative mugs. His work has been featured in Inklings and Veronica Lit Mag, and performed as part of a public reading series, the QUT Literary Salon. Despite currently preparing for a post-graduate Canadian writing vacation, bigger goals include publishing at least one specific novel to call his own, and appearing on The Amazing Race. Regrettably, he currently lives on the Gold Coast, Australia.