from Fantasies in Permeable Structures
Laura Elrick |
XXVI.
She thought it was 'gross.' And that
the unctuous knave dissipated back
into the stark totalities of urban sprawl
(where she succumbed, in spite of herself
at the Temple of Frozen Mochas, to a grim
and deadly delight) and was never heard from
again having last been seen doubled up
beside a Ford Ranger, grasping her belly
in vain. Did we mention her name was Molly?
These days, the camera approach view
we're used to made it strange. So the suburban
stretch of boxy gray paneled houses, seemed
well, hardly a dream. Hardly any man's
castle. The driveways all sank
into infected grounds breeding squirrels with no
tails—that for the lack, fell—from fences
to the as-yet unlandscaped plots in syncopated
thuds. We were visiting from the past
with brazen partners: Emma Goldman,
Mother Courage, Lucy Parsons and me
come down to get a few things signed
that might prove our existence. Exhilarating
and seditous, full of hope never-ending
that goes on... even in the face of aging
bureaucrats slink away can't hear our requests.
We're tired of going about things this way
but can't get back to our true work
fomenting revolution, unless we first exist.
Cripes we hate the bureaucrat's dry
and tapered fingers, manicured powers
and such dull eyes we practically faint
with boredom at a glance—is a conspiracy?
XXVII.
And now... having paused a long space...
The space grows and takes on character
until, glancing back, you must admit you can't
pick up the trail and then you're stuck there
in the middle of your life—bounded on all sides
by whirling river. Add to that it's Autumn
a chill snaps quick to snows and what is
future. This was a summer song now needled
to winter. In the midst, such subtle shifts
can you feel a period ending? Episodic—No—
cried the sirens through the last open window.
These never-ending spans overlapping all
layered architectures, gleaming dust and gold
of the city. Branches, of the city. Glass
of city anxious faces facing. Similarities
enforce the difference, here, in the Rome
of our anthologized wonder. We are
growing old, beginning. We are
keeping on. Under satellites of stabilized
violent "grace," wincing out into the world
to enter a database. To strive and become useful.
To surveil and be surveilled. Swirling swirling
reason. Turbulent logic, sick. Technical fix.
Means, means it's all duct tape, glue kids
sniff to prevent hunger. "Reach out your hand
to me and jump!" Says the oldest man shepherd
of information. "Contribute!" The gull cries
"Resist the new occlusions!" Tonight we toast
the padded thighs of our disappearing age
we call the motions. Tonight we try to ride
the eddy, float the private joys we share, shsh...
aimed. By weight of Nation's waves.
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