Listen to me read this poem

Among the roses, searching for thrips
I fear it's inevitable as History
By the time our grandchildren are old
This place will be baked back to scrub

The papers on the garden bench proclaim
In black and white that black is white
All's "force and fraud" apathy and greed
The future still the creature of the past

I dead-head, petals fall delicate
As democracy as civilisation itself
Ineluctable as global warming
At this margin only weeds will flower

But like a cicada in the history-bird's beak
Poetry must protest to the death - beyond that.