Yes, I know this is a rehash of a #Combatprose (RIP) topic, but nobody here played that game. Besides, dystopia is terrific and always deserves reexamination: drive thru prayer and rubber porn star fuck toys are only part of what makes it so weird. Robo-traders flash crash markets sending millions into poverty and starvation and the powers that be say, 'ha ha, tough shit. That's the market in action baby!' But only recently have we seen the true face of mechanized degeneracy: the heirs are losing the technology of their fathers and mothers. Nuclear power plants run on Indian engineers who will have computer scientist children. The devolution is complete when the grandchild is a poet, writer or artist-type. Some say we will be the most literate stone-age people ever, some day. I prefer to think of ourselves and this age as the last of the screaming flesh before we fuse with machines and become even greater prosthetic gods.
Combat Expiration: 12am PST, 3/28/2011
Critique Expiration: 12am PST, 3/30/2011
Bonuses/Penalties: +2 if posted by 6pm PST, 3/25/2011, +1 if posted by 2am PST 3/26/2011, -1 if posted by 6am PST 3/28/2011, -2 if posted by 12pm PST 3/28/2011.
The Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
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DYSTOPIA NOW
ReplyDeletethis black man is president and ugh he’s trying to take away all my rights he wants to take away my guns he wants to take away my religion oh won’t someone save me from this black man and the horrible nightmarish world he is creating the world is such a rotten place to live in now because in the old days I might have been poor I might have been dumb Hell I might have even been a bad person but at least I was white and back then that was all anyone needed to feel good about themselves now how can I feel good about myself knowing they let a black man become president what a horrible world what a horrible world I don’t understand how they expect society to survive if I’m not better than a goddamn black man then what the Hell am I better than how could we have let this happen how could we have let society fall into such a sad sad state I never knew black people could ever become president we never thought it would ever happen but it did and now we’re all doomed because he’s going to force white women to have abortions and the few white women that are left he’ll just take for himself and his black friends and call them reparations that’s what all this healthcare nonsense is it’s a smokescreen to force white women to have abortions they’re going to create a nightmare world in which whites are the minority and blacks are the master race oh Jesus Christ what have we done to deserve this America used to be a paradise back when everyone knew their place and no one dared get uppity now it’s Hell on Earth how could other white people go along with this oh God oh God oh goddamn this black man president
Fruit of Knowledge [CW Poem, 3.25.2011]
ReplyDeleteShould you call it a baby tooth tucked in a pillow
Or call it a molar that crumbled with grinding?
Maybe it's better to say it's a fang
With venomous sacs, else a poison saliva?
You could wish for anything, but instead wish for money.
You ablate in the night as you sweat out anxiety—
And you ache for a cushion for teeth:
Something to suck-in your antidote.
It was all about feet
ReplyDeleteI sat on the pavement of Regent street
just outside the Burberry store
and feet tread the pavement
in a determined march
of the fed and the angry
The young, they wanted their moment,
And storefront windows
were being broken on Piccadilly, while
spray paint philosophy added
gravitas to the walls
Then the police arrived with Their Shields.
Their shields were windows and the men
looked out. Their eyes were square, and
who knows what the law thinks?
I didn't feel like sitting anymore,
and I had a coat to select. I had no beef
with these guys here, or those guys there
and I stepped inside the Burberry store
as some of the people outside
got the truth
they desired
while others the truth
they deserved
If there is no utopia, there is no such thing as dystopia. Where I grew up, among big houses on landscaped hillsides, from time to time someone would dump a body on a dead end road, or alongside a dirt path. One day a shotgun blast rang out across my neighborhood. Rumors spread quickly: One angry guy had come the house of another guy, who brought out his shotgun and fired it in the air to scare the angry guy away. I knew the little sister of the shotgun shooter. The next day in history class I asked her what happened. "I don't want to talk about it," she said. Where is this utopia of which you speak? It's always been dystopia, dystopia then, dystopia now. The earth shakes, the mountains move, the rain falls ... The mud slid down the cliffsides and onto the road in front of me as I drove to work through the canyon this morning. The Highway Patrolman had just arrived, and he didn't seem to know what to do. Put up an orange cone first, then call for the bulldozer, or vice versa? Dystopia today, dystopia every day.
ReplyDeleteOnyx, really liked that piece. It reads like the start of a short story, with a clear voice and I can feel the dustiness of the world. +1
ReplyDeleteI think however that you are overdoing the age and weariness part from the narrator starting from the line "Where is this utopia of which you speak". The narrative of the growing up makes the point, and when you go from concrete to abstract, i think you lose the strength that comes with the shortness. I would have expanded on the actual depiction of childhood events and then added more meat to the events now.
thanks forp, you're right. it was a 2-minute comp and i just let 'er rip. extemporaneous free association. my inner poet is often overshadowed by my inner rhetorician. your comment was a good reminder of that. i'll try to keep him under control next time!!
ReplyDeletea lens built to bind
ReplyDeleteand magnify our greed
freedom from religious rule
it happened like a super nova
we expanded, it's star dust curtain
dislodging earthly cultured anchors
for some moments in the flux of forces
a balance and harmony are realized
all possibilities can be glimpsed
the mystery veiled by proximity
clears from the outer perimeter
our links turn venomous
as freedoms gift, greed
drives our envy, narrows our vision
back through the lens, our leaders magnified
in the light-less mired center
it's pull, a plight plotting a course
deeper than before