by Jason Camlot
They will take my island
to the tip of Florida,
fix it between two flamingos,
and make a Ferris wheel.
They will take my island
to Mount Sinai. Then they will
carry my island back down again.
Then they will smash it to pieces.
They will take my island
to the top of Etna the volcano,
set it over the hole like Achilles’ shield,
and make Freudian repression.
They will take my island
to the coast of the Gaza strip,
near the Bay of Pigs,
in Wii Sports Resort.
They will take my island
to Trader Vic’s in Almaty,
Kazakhstan, and paint it blue
like the tops of mosques.
They will take my island,
they will take my island,
they will take my island,
the revolution will not be tweeted.
They will take my island,
please, baddum-bum,
and serve it as Vaudeville Pie
in Henny Youngman’s kitchen.
They will take my island from my head
and put it in my hands. They will knock it
from my hands and it will roll like an apple
in the schoolyard at recess.
They will take my island
to the Atlantic Ocean
and prepare it for Salt
Water Taffy production.
They will take my island
to Vermont for the weekend,
and when they return it untouched
they’ll call it aloof, cold, autistic.
They will take my island
to the tailor and attempt to measure
its waist and inseam. They will
make my island pants with cuffs.
They will take my island
to the top of the mountain
so that he can see what other
islands look like from above.
They will take my island
to the giant bus depot
and slip it into the giant
coin-op waiting-room television.
They will take my island
to the moon so it can
be the first island
to walk on the moon.
They will take my island
to its first concert at the Montreal
Forum and it will smoke hash
but not feel anything.
They will take my island
to Fantasy Island and it will
learn the folly of its fantasy
to be Fantasy Island.
They will take my island
where it cannot be found
and it shall be missed for a while
and then forgotten.
They will take my island.
Those ones are most inclined to snatch me reef.
Them guys shall enact the seizure of mine isle.
The authorities are going to effect the acquisition of my archipelago.
“They Will Take My Island,”
a Canadian song about love, death,
abandonment, emasculation,
pets, romantic poetry, and Italian food:
They will take my island.
They will shoot my dog.
They will drop my snippies
somewhere in Ottawa.
They will take my island,
from this sorry song,
hide it in a teardrop
from the socket of Don Juan.
They will take my island,
they will toss it high,
they will slide it in the oven,
make a pizza pie.
They will take my island
away from the children.
The children will cry,
“They have taken our island!”
They will take my island,
I will cling to it fast.
I will cling fast to my island.
They will take my island with me.
They will take my island
without good reason.
I will destroy them
with good reason.
They will take my island.
But who are they?
Rabbi Gamaliel says,
“They” in the line
“They will take my island”
refers to they who have not been refined
by an ethics of property, and, consequently,
take unlawfully. Rabbi José says,
“They will take my island”
refers to they who have not
and therefore must take to survive.
This is the true ethics of property.
They will take my island.
The “will” suggests inevitability,
A pre-determined event, unpreventable,
as in, The will of God.
They will take my island,
get it shined up for their price runs,
make a live cause of Mike Tyson
versus Foreman, never mind what.
They will take my island,
touch the sides up without license,
get their fight on, get their knives out,
strike a riot, slyly triumph.
They will take my island,
find a pilot with a lightbulb,
a nice fellow, join his flight club,
crash their plane into a Giant.
They will take my island
but they mightn’t,
had we tightened up the ropes
between the eyelets.
They will take my island
dress it up as NY’s finest,
slide it out of violent ovens so the
Brooklynites can buy it.
They will take my island
and it will become an absence
that has been recorded
in binary code.
They will take my island
and it shall be remembered so long
as there is poetry in the bacterial
cells of SpongeBob SquarePants.
They will take my island
and there is nothing this poem
can do about it, except delay,
or repeat one preordained atrocity.
