"They Keep Saying My Generation Will Save the World," "Gestures," and "Walking Past the Old Zoo Ruins"

They Keep Saying My Generation Will Save the World

I predict; one day I will die
Decompose into dirt
And the manic tractor monocrop that they plant in my belly
Will slurp me dry. Devoid of life.
I predict; I will die
Dirt will turn into poisoned dust
And when the planet turns desolate — and I trust that it will — only cold, lifeless rock —
Nobody will remember I was too shy to be an anarchist.
 
I went for my second walk of the day
In the setting wet chill of this October night.
Heavy
Eyelids under marijuana glaze.
Dripping sugar shelled insanity over all my nice things.
I cannot settled my shoulders — this has been true for months —
And my palms are so sweaty they
Slip loose over my phone through my pocket knotted together.
 
I predict; one day I will die
Or maybe I am already dust
Useless and floating pointless.
Scattered on the asphalt street over there
Kicked up by jumping semi truck
tires.
 
At the park a high school boy growls at me
Because I did not answer his question.
Talking to me because I am pretty, probably,
While his skateboard rolling friends rounded closer.
I’m so nervous. Preoccupied and squirming my fingers in my pocket
Still. High schoolers scare me. They always have.
 
He growls — and I laugh because
This is hilarious.
I forget he is right there in front of me
Not behind some surreal screen distance where I’m watching, separate, all this absurd and cartoonish.
And so technically — if we want to do this by technicality —
I am laughing in a teenage boy's face.
AITAH?
 
I am hoping to make this misery mean something
But so far it only makes me    shakier    and too shy to be an anarchist.
I don't want to laugh in anyone’s face
But I’m forgetting.
Faded into slippery foam of time
Substance numbed
Giggling and underfed
Picking at new pimples on my stubborn stuck in adolescence forehead.
I’m certain — triggering a skipped heart beat —
That the weight of terror will only lean deeper
And any hope there was to push it back
Is lost to my self medicated shaky knee fragility.

Gestures

Carefully
Colored breezes drift out under tinted lampshades. Green forest ambience, yellow sun
Light. Bright purple wildflowers. Warehouse air particles
Impressionist style, paint flat steel museum ceiling.
 
I am at wall, maroon suited, plate hors d’oeuvres, on hand. 
 
The function — fundraiser — is full of these square toothed claymation 1% mother fuckers. Skin wax drip ping with coulda been universal health care funding kind of priced new youth procedures.
 
There is a
Smile stained shrug — the cup in her hand
Red liquid brimming, slosh. Does not spill.
No, she poises perfectly. Robot salted joints hold steadfast performance.
The acrobat gestures.
 
In soft jazz din, clicking glass, camera choke capture, dead bellied sock puppets everywhere
Gesture. Over statements so empty they quick stop saying
At all.
 
Yes, then, as if language plane caught stuck, tangled on highway clock, while all else kept gassing.
Everything same ‘cept silence of words. I shiver, haunted waft, noticing. Pudding plastic cups on tray shake too.
 
Fashion, product of profit on subversion effort turned commodity, the patrons don thousand dollar ripped jeans, hip, as if self express nonconform necessity is, American, equal. Class, power, curve — flattened. Bright patterns, patched jeans, loud shaped layers. Coooooool, tight collared kings. Puff clouded vision, spokenless scene. Only sound, hands clasped kindergarten shuffling of shoes, hard heels, ambient. Echoes — heavy breath laughter — crisp open mouthed cackles.
 
No one looks at foreboding hover. Fund recipient exhibition, art comment on colonial trade violence. Irony lost. Subject lineage thrilled to plate local dissent with soft lit, walled in gallery space. Better than street. Better than state — takeover.
 
Sound, soft and awkward, ping pongs in high ceiling lobby. Miming gestures are all that maintain. Bounce eyebrows, out of context, knotting freckled foreheads. Handshakes quAaaAaAaking… quick jerk off on a cracked up pothole road. Shoulder grasp, putty, pushing pressure point.
 
Maroon suit me, deep v-neck discomfort, proximate to such touchy perversion.
 
Bright blonde, navy cloaked lady floats by, eyeless, toothless smile. Swipes a bacon wrapped scallion, delight, donates monthly to wildlife funds for worldly good. Her heavy blinding shadow lingers. So long.
 
So long, by time she is gone, the turn has taken great sinister tones. Something changed, so much abrupt, I blink hard, had the edibles before held stronger than known, oh, twisted reality? In minefield of mute hawing, all these bodies got half exposed. Suit tops, jackets, loose shorts and strappy dresses scattered. Scarves draped on round clothed table tops, snaked between empty glasses. Hair clips opened, locks tumble, all, slowly, stripping.
 
Slapping shoulders, hands clap, laughter. No jokes told. Only — shoulders up and down neck elevator, spit spraying, stubbled beard. Chests, hairy, thick stiff taught nipples rattle, rattle, snake hissssssss. Gasp. Only and skin hit — still. Not a word.
 
Jewelry dropped in shallow gin puddles. Belts wrapped on waists and wrists and tied on necks slip open. Bodies exposed, everywhere. Gestures. All that matters, they know, the gestures. So long as prison of pleasantries is held erect, all other behavior is no matter. The status quo holds fast, as long as we have the gestures.
 
My tray, empty now. When it happened, unsure. Silver ceiling reflection in void. Up in blurred backdrop, bodies — fully naked now! Piggy back, pouncing, big cat howl, trip, catch, pull. Limb, down. All trying to
Top each other! In between
Gestures.
 
Approaches me, sweaty heaving fatigue, red faced, thinks this all play. Anger (real?) fire in his eyes. Grinch teeth out, no words but I hear, shouting cavern, clear in shattered telepathy tunnel. “I’m sure you’ve got more food in the kitchen back there!” And, gesture, slaps my back.
 
Pop, gun shot, glass shards, I am sent — head trailing — forward. Maroon suit split, buttons break open by hand shape stretched forward. Skin thin heart center, then cracks. This fucker’s hand scraping my lungs, punching out. Complete penetration. Blood coughs up — dribbles — tips over my loose wiggling lips. He killed me.
 
I fall to floor, vision blurred, blackening. The last thing I see, some Democrat campaign strategist checking my ID. Spoken words, finally, so say to the crowd, thrilled, that, in light of tragedy, pleased to share, I am a registered organ donor.

Walking Past the Old Zoo Ruins

Boulders hot in the afternoon sun in sticky rubber paint —
Layers and graffiti. Hide your texture, boulders.
 
USA made cages and prison bars where the air gets in.
 
Metal linked fence cages. Hot in the afternoon sun. Ouch.
 
I’m walking past the old zoo ruins, ancient shiver slithers through. I’m
 
Afraid of accommodations they offer to things that don't speak their language.
Because I don't quite speak their language.
 
Or they don’t quite speak mine. I can't — figure out —
Which way it goes.
 
I don't quite speak their language — full of words that tell trapping of living being minds.
I don’t quite speak their language — syntax of dominate nation.
Military maneuvers. Taming the wild. Manifest genocide. Seeded GMO pesticide … hatred.
Corporate union-crushing little guy, poor little guy, anguished cry impoverished little guy under crypto currency watchful eye!
 
Cage the little guy —Boulders and bombs and prison bars — Help.
 
I don’t speak that language. That language is not mine. Nor the dollars and cents it finds high in praise.
Profit minded lends itself to old zoo cages — violence.
 
I’m told to be empirical.
Empirical time drain savor not a moment but the numbers, numb dumb dull faced numbers!
 
Instead I’ll develop my theories like Socrates. Nothing empirical. Only astute observations.
I will live in defense of astute observations!
Like, have you ever noticed, or maybe thought sinister, that the words sense and cents sound so similar?
 
Somewhere some story in old desert timeline — a cowboy sunset settled on tipped brim shadows. Road’s only fork and a bibled choice at hand.
 
Cents or sense? A nation's fate depends.
Where untrained eye sights faded mirages, unfocused shimmers and shivers mount sweet diversion! You must admit that this is sinister.
 
Cents and sense. Sense and cents. Cents sense cents sense cents cents sense! Cents and dollars, god! This bad trip hallucination is running me crazy!
Cents — the road to oblivion and holy soul embers,
black and burnt to nothing.
 
But sense! Oh, sweet sense! Sense me some desire. Sense with your toes — the smell of a far away campfire.
Sense the animal instinct to know. And touch where skin is scratchy —
no sticky rubber paint on these bare branches.
No, naked and near the soft waters edge. Always. Soaked in the impossible joy of sense. Sense
 
Cents sense cents cents cents. In faded mirages the future holds.
Sleepy cowboy cant hear the difference — down one road he goes.
 
Sense and cents and only one could give way to these cages and torn fabric homes.
Walking past the old zoo ruins and mourning the cages and the walls.
Where corners are so much like gentrified new build LA street quarters —
Sharp and unkind…
 
Because I’m afraid of what they do to things that don't quite speak their language
 
Because I don't quite speak their language.
 
And, well, they've already done it to me. Haven't they?