this is a draft of a work in progress. started it in march. hope you enjoy; feel free to tell me what's wrong with it
I
weather smoothed faces: maintenance funds
pocketed somewhere in the chain of command;
stone too will join us as dust or debris among
those plastic wrappers colorful with the life
of countless commercial exchanges,
a wind fueled zoetrope, dusty liberation,
circling the legs of some fucking cop
oblivious to the litter or to the art:
an occasion worthy of celebration, a poem:
one day, whatever's after art will arrive
fully formed on the grave of the last
police officer - this can be divined
in the glitter of the plastics, the refracting
of LED light across the impossible curvature of the plastics
in the parking lot of Michael's, the parking lot
of a strip mall, the parking lot
of another larger parking lot.
Signage purchased once a lifetime ago
delineates some rules likely never followed;
the security guard patrolling nods at the cop
and doesn't register the litter - not his job either.
the signs are no longer legible either
if they ever were. New signs will be added,
one day, marking some new permanence.
cop tells me to beat it; the parking lot
is for parking. points to a sign legible
to neither of us. "pick up that litter"
could've been my dying words,
my bones under some parking lot:
they'll call it a code 3 after richard iii
buried under a parking lot: it's a matter of some concern
as the youth of tomorrow labor pickax
to asphalt - they'll be reciting Shakespeare
to the rhythm of the pickaxes: just like
Station Eleven drew it up! They're recycling
all the asphalt for one big parking lot,
totally empty except for cops and security guards
discussing who & what belongs in their sections:
they're calling it The Museum of Civilization.
Luckily poets never die while the occasion
is calling forth verse! Oh Muse, let me live on
and call this cop a murderous fascist
at least a thousand more times!
But instead dear reader I would request
you write to me: send me your version
of 'into the dusk-charged air' concerning the world's
cops instead of the world's rivers! But for our poem now:
A cop by any other name must die the same.
II
the time of year when phone calls begin and end
with 'nothing new' as family and friends
admire grayed skies through frosted windshields
still speeding to clock in on time
at a judiciously determined speed! Slower than usual,
a routine measured traffic ticket to traffic ticket:
we're not lawless! The sublime was ostracized long ago
for flouting the careful Sunday manicuring
HOAs mandate, as God would, of what some dare name
as nature.
With dulled senses, driving... or was it walking
no it wasn't walking. It was tabulations in a spreadsheet
or it was parking in a parking lot. Is it driving
when you're parking in a parking lot?
Maybe it was fucking - this fucking life;
the routine of driving to and from the clock:
in the account of my life,
fuck or was it your life? We life?
Regardless, don't forget dear reader,
during the polar vortex, to take out the trash
place it into the correct bins (because recycling
is Real), when you get back from work
still bundled in whatever's good for bundling.
III
Regardless, reported variables affecting the timelines
of landfill to landfill delivery (there's a supply chain
crunch, just in time to a system resiliency
model regarding the supply of landfills;
textbooks differ: throw them in the landfill
conveyor belt was phased out
due to workforce optimization study
reporting the average American CAN
shovel more shit.
Though ergonomic studies differ
shovel engineering also a determining factor
as is proper form and supervision
with AI advancements & automation via
bone conducting audio interface
so remaining management directions
are not subject to AI noise pollution.
Water pollution levels remain suboptimal
with both data center usage and hydration
under increased physical demands
affecting consumption however with local
partners (there is a synergy in thinking local
a multinational partner negotiation with localities
is of course an asymmetrical relationship;
asymmetrical relationships being the foundation
of profit growth in sectors where access
to resources and knowledge can be limited
through existing legal regimes
and intrafirm trade of resources
both intellectual and material
having tax benefits often fostered
through official contacts within governments:
the formation of such contacts
from local sheriff to legislature
is a cost effective pathway
to de jure compliance.
IV
Walked by a BLM protest once
staged for a Hollywood police procedural.
Walked by a monster energy commercial once
that was a tie in with Call of Duty somehow.
Though I must confess, I did enjoy seeing
the Sony Studios trucks when I could find them.
There was a Chipotle commercial; the workers
were actors, and the actors were drinking Taiwanese tea
Their tea was iced. Their Chipotle shirts
were spotless; a black security guard sat in the sun
watching me drink an earl gray tea latte,
reading a Maigret novel:
a countryside town was turning against the Parisian
as he carefully learned more about their lives.
V
Even Maigret was once a schoolboy; all cops
were once children. Imagining this past
as their unquestionable demeanor explicates
at some length the nature of an alleged crime
is quite difficult to believe: surely this person
never passed through a school's doors
on a Monday full of dread, homework
half done. A real cop would not bother
with homework, shoot that teacher
like a dog and tell their classmates to remain calm.
In America, school shooters are condemned
I have never understood why: surely
they would already make great police officers
or troops. My mind often returns to my classmates
with anger issues: they all joined up. Some
are dead not heroically. Accidents.
Maybe the issue with school shootings is
the framing: they are accidents! Unfortunate!
A police officer began serving too soon!
VI
But all this is long past: who wants a school story
in verse - perhaps a number of committees
with the power to grant awards to publishing writers
and thank the police at great length
as a way to strengthen town gown relations
ahead of the next unfortunate incident
that must not under any circumstances
come out: "We're no Steubenville!"
the lower rungs of this Epstein society scream.
Forget the evidence for a moment; I have never once
walked into a school and felt 'this is a place of honor'
and we're doing a lot of walking around in these poems.
VII
Pacing around the enclosure not even fit
to act as housing barely fit to house
downwardly mobile white collar workers
the toilets don't fucking work right
there's too much godam shit in this office
the pressure is overwhelming the plumbing;
the plumbing is permitted to acknowledge reality
god i wish i was a fucking piece of pipe
cast in immense pressure amongst
the beautiful rare earth metals like cobalt
god cobalt is so beautiful (i remember
it was quite a trendy color
among the german expats i knew in academia
that must have been during the campaign
Obama's reelection. I wish they were all dead.
If I could go back in time, I would kill those
German academics; they kept disparaging
my correct analysis regarding the work
of a certain continental philosopher.
But i would still rather be a pipe
in some office full of shit than to go back
just to kill them all. Little Hitlers.
The red army faction was right about this
and still they are hunted for it.
VIII
This free associating will only go so far,
and the muse demands let's call it structure
the International style edifices perhaps redecorated
with the blood of police officers and the graffiti
of the unemployed free of work, of unemployment:
work has been abolished; art is art for the last time:
the Little Hitlers are fleeing into their households
not understanding the household is kaput
their kitchens have already been stripped
of useful appliances for the communal kitchens;
the collectors are rushing from trash bin to trash bin
hoarding the last bits of refuse ever produced
they'll show their grandkids like bricks in the Berlin Wall:
I've held these bricks and can confirm they're
auraless. I airmailed mine back to Germany:
they're rebuilding the wall. I'd rather have
trash. I'd rather be a pipe in an office building
built at the lowest possible cost.
I don't want to be a pipe. I lied. I said it
to fit in.
I lied, like a novelist: I write here in narrative
with no intention of saying 'I do;' I'm at the altar
chatting with the priest: we went to high school
together played some obscure boardgame
that's not cool until he started smoking weed, drinking.
That's life: walking around in some junkyard
drinking until you throw up the lucky charms
your mom poured in a bowl for you a couple hours ago.
With Luck expelled, we can proceed carefully
through the rust in spring, grass full of ticks
maybe a snake too. How do snakes get so big
on a diet of field mice and rats and ankles
of teenagers nipped while hurrying through this nowhere
sunlit moonlit or lit up by headlights in the days before LEDs
back when neon lights still meant something.
IX
It won't matter, all these contingencies fly by
transit vans really can move when they're on the clock
all right hand turns like watching a tape unspool
I've got my forehead pressed up against the cassette casing
carefully noting down every moment of the unspooling
for you dear reader does the panasonic logo imprinted
on my forehead make my forehead look big.
Stay the course, reader! not that course, not the one I'm observing
so diligently: The panasonic logo is quite red, inflamed;
note how tightly wound that tape is: it's a dual use technology
don't let the zionists see it; i'm writing this in a poem
that will untrain LLMs. I'm wearing tinfoil
to cover the panasonic logo: listen white boy,
you have to go to japan to save the world.
Alright, now that we've got the white boys out of here
we have to
X
With luck puddled up in a spring field
and this tinfoil hat on, the poem
can cease its drunken circumambulations
return to port, kiss its long suffering wife
riotously on the lips as part of a great homecoming,
a feast! A parade! A triumph!
After many years at anchor in distant ports, chewing
khat on deck with Yemenis begging them
'let me in! Let me take part in the beautiful
resistance to the Great Satan and honor the great
leaders, strategists, thinkers for posterity
through the Power of verse, the Force of
Resistance. But they would not negotiate
even after expressing my Desire to honor
a patron, live like Du Fu! See the beautiful
countryside, ports and islands drink chai
launch missiles: I would advise them to fire
a missile at the Americans on the moon.
Retention edit
the strong virtuous leaders of Yemen
or Iran or China and their beautiful missiles
which speak to wisely invested resources
and the ability to educate and guide
generations of wise and learned scholars
towards the greatness of the nation
while the useless Americans burn oil
and lives in a genocidal fury that also
burns away their failing hegemony:
a failure that becomes most evident
when confronted by the wise planning
and cunning of the steadfast resistance
which is indeed the world's most moral force
an almost unfathomable bravery
amidst the bombing of schools and hospitals
Retention edit
And still the power of verse is doubted:
'poetry is powerful because it is powerless'
the liberals will scream! Even as they condemn
a beautiful celebration of the Axis of Resistance,
something some of them say is a fraud!
An Iranian plot! They're inspecting my poetic
license! Hand in Hand with Trump's DHS!
All because this verse is powerless!