Sunset on the human race / A tardigrade could do better / Traditions get mangled, entangled, star-spangled / Genocide as a form of tourism: A slam poetry-esque Longette Lite* from the deviser

CW: suicide, police brutality, child removal, colonisation, mass extinction

We’ll bow out, without grace—nuked or elsehow extinct. A tardigrade/rotifer/roach would do better; it’s

lucky they’ll outspan us and our civil-eyes-action, where ‘nice’, and ‘polite’
are weightier than who gets killed; optics are of the essence, after of course profit
and growth—and that’s fakerly growth like bitcoin, share price, GDP and so on. Where TQM

trumps NVC and ABC means eroded truth, underfunded till it’s nicely moulded

into being complicit, toeing state lines, which albeit    shifting     are so meaning-making—
borders of this and borders of that: countries, front yards, the edges of garden beds where lawn creeps

through the cracks—and even permaculturists agree on the wealth edges bring to a

system—so bountiful, so diverse—without those, life would be a lot less rich—all the
traditions entangled, getting mangled, star-spangled, subsumed, absorbed, erased,
so we’d all smell the same, act the same, forget our names, live in slums

of cultural poverty, eschewing our proud ancestry of capture and genocide—those

old-fashioned kinds of tourism making a resurgence, where you not only outstay your welcome
but burn down the bed-and-breakfast, bulldoze your host’s culture, language, brilliance,

dimming it with diseases, sugar, booze. Where you’d happily dig a mine in their

burial site and hide that uncomfortable truth, destroy the remains, treat their ancestors with disdain,
ignore the pain. Soon it’s time to take their kids away (for safety); next stop jail, where if suicide fails there’s always impalement on a fence, resisting future arrest—fleeing cops since cops

are tools of the oppressor they rightly fear and can’t reclaim. It’s self-evident if you but took

the time to look: the new slavery is wages—and community service for ages.
Pull the jails down—we got community! Fuck police’s immunity. Can’t be called on their crimes ‘cause

they’re on the dime? At least do no harm! But they won’t—
and I can’t—
so
we don’t.

[Notes:
* This is the world’s 2nd ever longette lite!
Photograph and drawings by Catherin J Pascal Dunk 2026.
Note: I am seeking a (paid) cultural sensitivity read from within my local First Nations community. Please contact me if you are available to provide this service, or if you have a lead.]