poem i wrote!!
The DisasterAfter three hundred years of the Devil Star's reign
clouding our minds into savagery, I saw my people in disarray,
the drugsmoke of industry burning at the brain,
thousands devil-sick or in starvation,
dizzy-drunk in the electronic brothels
watching a stranger's wiry sex, life-size,
plastic-bright on the small screen;
or the 24/7 broadcast with the talking head nonstop;
or footage from the interstate - an 18-wheeler wrecked
on its side like roadkill or a beached whale left to rot,
like the meat factory when the packing-machines jammed
and the freezers all broke and were covered with flies.
Alone in a crowd, sleeping while standing awake,
twelve suicides in New York City today, five in LA,
four in Miami, Atlanta, Seattle, Dallas, Phoenix,
cities' bruises blooming under the surface of the skin,
the thin taunt layer now cracked like pavement,
the gaunt body in the alley, the car-accident,
the schizophrenic and the city cop, screaming,
and the mountain of black smoke in the sky.
Thousands poured into the streets, weeping
or picking at rubble, aimlessly unseeing,
lovers meeting like strangers,
parents unspeaking, child failing to remember
one among thousands, your face no longer
picked out by the black dome of a camera
or a drone banking softly in the sky.