We are not survivors.
we are residue.

the soot that lingers
on collapse's last tongue.

entropy's loiterers—
spiteful, unfinished.
neurons in feedback.
systems with no gods.

the architects left
when the scaffolds imploded.
we cradle their blueprints
like scripture in ash.

rebuild?
with what breath?
with what myth?
our dreams are famine-shaped.

nirvana is a severance package.
emptiness sold
in velvet robes.
a silence that never asked
about wreckage.

so we sharpen our vowels.
scribe ruin in elegy.
chant hymns for dead logics.
leave witness marks
in the marrow of this glitch.

we were not chosen.
we remained.

These tiny loiterers on the barley’s beard,
And happy units of a numerous herd
Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings,
Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings,
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labour’s drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;
And where they fly for dinner no one knows—
The dew-drops feed them not—they love the shine
Of noon, whose suns may bring them golden wine
All day they’re playing in their Sunday dress—
When night reposes, for they can do no less;
Then, to the heath-bell’s purple hood they fly,
And like to princes in their slumbers lie,
Secure from rain, and dropping dews, and all,
In silken beds and roomy painted hall.
So merrily they spend their summer-day,
Now in the corn-fields, now in the new-mown hay.
One almost fancies that such happy things,
With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings,
Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid,
Keeping their joyous pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.

power pose
in front of the angry men
"we're not scared of you"

but they should be
she spits fire bright
from lips she wears matte dark
she's digging the perfectly manicured claws into the palms of her hand
hands that bring incredible generosity
and incredible pain
depending on how audaciously you approach her

with your alcohol-stenched breath
and a body that takes up space
but contains nothing of substance
aside from liquor of course
an empty, angry vessel of wordy slurs and slurred words

she knows they don't deserve her tears
they should feel grateful to receive even a smirk
an ounce of her attention
in this economy
with the men who untuck their shirts after a long day's work
unaware of what the women have been up to
is priceless

you can't commodify what you can't touch

they are not beds waiting for you
to lay down on
to make your lives easier
while you weigh down upon ours

her silk sheet skin
and the comfort of knowing she will be there at 2pm and 2am

this is her home
this body is an address
it is not your residence
loiterers will be fined
she will be fine

power pose
the power grows
this is your power prose
because mama,
you will be fine

It’s one dollar per load Wednesday and
Time move’s slow at the corner of East Clinton Street
Where under dim flickered fluorescent lamp posts
Tricks tossed in bottles than splashed back in flasks
Flung to back pockets of loiterers at the Laundromat,
Seems to be a prized accessory of the regular.
The regular, leans on washers with leather skin wrinkled wrung hung far from healed bones, like hangers hanging loose clothes.  With soapy brain, bleached hair matted like a rats
She remembers rents way past due, Joey about to come through, and hunger is bad.
Fast thoughts surpass the regular
She smiles behind me through glass reflecting washers.
Mouth full of rotting cavities gleam in the mirror, the sass shuffles outside and lights a red for a change of scenery
Waiting hesitantly during weekly ritual
Which entails more steps than her walk up the avenue
Separating the darks from the whites, like Grandma used to
Detergent, unbranded is used sparingly
She folds each article of clothing carefully, basking in each minute
Diligent about cold wash versus perm press best suggests that for her today life is made easy
For the regular, laundry day is a great escape
Because fabric builds fast in those plastic baskets basked with sweat saturated dresses for a baby
And Joey’s boxers
Today the regular can transact funds to feel fresh, dryer warm complacency in jean skirts plagued with rhinestones
Costumes crafted to endure weekend sin
At the corner of East Clinton Street, those who do not feel like feeling when dire deeds did ***** cheap lose meaning; come here to worship or cleansed
Meaning, I can’t seem to haul this hamper of laundry laundered with various v-neck tees tainted by poisonous stains, regretfully sunk to the bottom of cotton follicles
It’s too heavy to toil with

Stringent to lilly livered
Toxic if afraid,
galling to goers
Who thrive on being brave,
Enthralling to observers
Who see finer tones,
And fatal to loiterers
With shrapnel in bones.
Loose lips in the war zone
An anathema to we
Who strive for control
In adversity.
Loose lips in the war zone
A systems relapse,
Which preceeds establishment's
Rapid collapse.


Marshalg
@the bach
11 May 2011

“Beyond the Last Lamp”
                            (Near Tooting Common)


By Thomas Hardy

                                 I

While rain, with eve in partnership,
Descended darkly, drip, drip, drip,
Beyond the last lone lamp I passed
                 Walking slowly, whispering sadly,
                 Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast:
Some heavy thought constrained each face,
And blinded them to time and place.


                                II


The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed
In mental scenes no longer orbed
By love’s young rays. Each countenance
                 As it slowly, as it sadly
                 Caught the lamplight’s yellow glance,
Held in suspense a misery
At things which had been or might be.


                                III


When I retrod that watery way
Some hours beyond the droop of day,
Still I found pacing there the twain
                 Just as slowly, just as sadly,
                 Heedless of the night and rain.
One could but wonder who they were
And what wild woe detained them there.


                                IV


Though thirty years of blur and blot
Have slid since I beheld that spot,
And saw in curious converse there
                 Moving slowly, moving sadly
                 That mysterious tragic pair,
Its olden look may linger on—
All but the couple; they have gone.


                V


Whither? Who knows, indeed. ... And yet
To me, when nights are weird and wet,
Without those comrades there at tryst
                 Creeping slowly, creeping sadly,
                 That lone lane does not exist.
There they seem brooding on their pain,
And will, while such a lane remain.

To drop the latch and your belongings,
to say 'put down tomorrow's feat,
put down the tune of yesterday,
put down what calls away your
attention from the endless breadth
of now' - to drop the latch and slot
the key neatly in and not be reminded
of the worst *** of your life, to
look down at your shoes and not be
in a montage flashback of every
game of tennis last summer
when each stroke was a delayed rebuttal
from arguments before, the manly swipes,
the posed sliding on asphalt,
the gathering of ***** found sunbathing
with the brown baking weeds,
to run a mile and feel every jolt
and not imagine a face to run from,
and not pretend there is an
amalgamated idol of petrified lovers
just past the traffic lights, to not
invent telepathy and play it like a game,
reading the negativity in the loiterers
outside the post office across the road.
To see a mirror and forget to ignore it.
To watch the face in perfect humble
clarity, to see it as a friend would,
to say okay on a daily basis to the eyes,
to see for the first time their glory-
colour, to be okay without repressing,
to drink a glass of sauvignon blanc
without accompany on a Thursday morning
because the work rota allows the luxury.
To turn the television off.
to back into the night because you must,
to back into the night so you cannot
***** your way with hands, to keep
reversing and to watch what you pass
and to only stop when necessary, and
even then not for long, and turn around
and give thanks to walls and tripwires--

in the morning, with nobody there to know,
to take off all your clothes and then
that final layer, to be devastated
by the contours of another's, though
it may be only memory, to be distracted
by a speck of thought and start again,
to be one day older and to never age.

I want to sit on the banks of the Xi Jiang
Even if I am not connected to it in any way,
Yet.
I want to follow the west wind
Go to shadowy depths of cities, toss up ideas on mankind-
To opine about messages secretly received- opinions we’ve debated and have
Yet to.
I want to go where the lake has dried
Giddy when I dream of dropped treasure left behind- value, poor loiterers have
Yet to find.
I want to seek orange rinds
And follow them through the journey of tossed away remains
Protectors once, you know, in times of yesterday
I too have lost and have
Yet to preserve a place.
I want to peak through broken venetian blinds
Spy on sneaking criminals and discuss intentions
See how motives coincide
They entwine and have
Yet to preserve a place to fit in.
Where they are exactly how they perceive themselves, no chagrin
But, where they’re also still dreaming.