If I was rich, I'd be stalked by the hungry suits, craving my signature. I would ride the taxi—no—a limo to a fortress of glass and the worm of hunger would slide through my telephone receiver; my monitor.
If I had a bunker with a million barrels of oil and a hydroponic farm glazed in a ten horsepower halo of lights, I could grow my food and finally, be alone. It would be a coffin; a place free of aspiration. A pyramid where I would bury myself and wait for the afterlife. The bombs would detonate. I'd hear it on the radio. My friends would be on the radio. When they bored me enough, I would switch it off and inject myself with my homegrown fruit of the poppy.
If I could contain every metabolic process inside my bulk, I'd never piss again. Never move again. I would be a statue of boredom. I could plant myself where pigeons congregate and I could be their septic scepter: a statue of shit.
Combat Expiration: 12am PST, 7/4/2011
Critique Expiration: 12am PST, 7/6/2011
Bonuses/Penalties: +2 if posted by 8pm PST 7/1/2011; +1 if posted by 1am PST, 7/2/2011; -1 if posted by 6am 7/4/2011; -2 if posted by 12pm 7/4/2011
The Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html
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CARTOON TAO
ReplyDeletewhen the teachers repeats lessons
unlearned, time and anguish
reveal flaws unto them
and the mold will break
it will not hold the pupil
in it's former shape
Masters will grow
in perpetual ignorance
8
nourishment of the free
Autonomous
ReplyDeleteI’ll call it love
because this one
stayed ’til morning.
She must not have
had a place to sleep;
need and loneliness
often end up
drunk and naked
in a strange bed.
When they finally leave
I always try to tell myself
that I am a lucky man;
no woman to nag me
and spend my money.
Independence
is what the lonely
tattoo on the back of their necks
to make it seem like a choice.
I don’t really remember
what it is like to be part of a “we”
that lasts longer
than the inevitable hangover.
I suppose some truths
are much less
self-evident
than others.
SMG
Render Safe Procedure
ReplyDeleteYou thumbed the head of the lighter, introducing it
to fuse after fuse that stuck out like stingers
from the butts of the paper bumblebees,
pinched by the wing then released
to corkscrew madly, buzzing into the night.
We’d spend weeks plucking them from the gravel
which the city refused or couldn’t afford to repave,
no matter how many times we called to complain.
But tonight, we couldn’t see where they landed,
couldn’t even see where we stepped, the streetlights
were all shot out, and your heel teetered
on the lip of a gaping pothole just as you thrust
the cardboard baton of a Roman candle
high over your scalp like Lady Liberty wielding
her cold, green torch. Your whoop of triumph
turned to surprise as you toppled backwards, just as
–piff! Piff! Piff!- the bundles of lit gunpowder
shot from the mouth of the barrel, flying not skyward
but directly towards your own front porch.
And you, who pay your taxes just like everyone else,
you who are just as chained to this fool’s bargain
as the rest of us, you cried out at the explosions,
though there was little damage aside from some
black ash on the yellow siding,
the singed straw of the welcome mat.
Deciding this was a sign we should lay down our arms,
we then strolled tipsily through the dinky nearby park
where an aging fat couple sat on beach chairs
beside a plastic cooler full of more impressive July 4th ordnance.
Every few minutes they’d sigh and wearily rise
to set another one off, reluctantly, as if performing
a loathsome but necessary chore, an obligation.
Like they were tired of the noise, merely going through the motions.
As the starbursts and streamers whistled and boomed above,
I thought of Bradley, recently come back from Baghdad,
having finished his third tour of duty and returned
taciturn as ever. When badgered, he’d mutter
a few vague anecdotes about guarding alleged insurgents
in a converted Green Zone warehouse.
An IED leaves a hell of a pothole, but he escaped
from the burning desert unscathed. We swivel our heads
at a screech from a couple rolling around
on a blanket: her spine has just connected
with a hidden stone. The two old-timers
look bored by all the racket.
Is this what it comes down to, in the end;
apathy in the midst of these explosions?
The thrill and horror dulled by the sheer
persistence of all this drudgery?
Does boredom then remain our greatest enemy?
Tired of slapping our arm to squash the mosquitoes,
we head back, careful to skirt the tines of burnt sparklers,
the charred cardboard shells of dead incendiaries.
In front of the house, we once again trip
on those same invisible holes in the road,
skinning our knees, too tired to cry out
in the dark, too tired to laugh at our clumsiness.
Those sudden flashes of light so rapidly spent:
no sooner do they fade, then we forget.