the terrible gild of bandaging out of control...

Nick Ut / Associated Press. © 1972

I am a child of GI Joe and that little girl running, burning from napalm, in that seminal picture, so long ago

due to a plastic embryo logic

I have indentured myself

to the salt mines

open mouthing a basin

of wordless surrendered eyes

I can still very much smell

the sulfur delves

of my base instincts

should I stay a taut bow slave

an accident of igneous rock

an article of confederation

a formation of freewill burning

my soul for jellied fuel and clear sight lines

when electricity sputters along avenues

and synapses wired to our skins

we are limbed, in a land desperate

for a taste of nature without us in it

begging for what frenzy can be

without the locomotion of bi-pedals

and bi-sects with brains bent

into destructive methodologies

we safety net the butterfly effects

the what ifs, and what ever else

we can get away with

weave it into parallel universes

swelling embraced accordions

lungs fill, ready to burst

breathing is hard to do

when you do not want 

to wake up tomorrow, first

sometimes, I care not to know

whether even weather knows me,

you or anyone else that can be

subjugated in the mirror

drifting into places nearer

to the warm entrails

of resigned, exhaled

we melt sand into glass

silver black it, painting

other sides of things

we say let’s keep everything

for tomorrow, in erasable destinies

washing machines, consuming

as much want as we can fit

under the heat stretch and shrink

plastic wrap factory untied states 1967

mechanized war gaining steam

bleeding leading news blades

throats crawl quiet to old age now

plastic bubble cardboard backing

photo print real, don’t open please

you net us more worth

never having been touched

by your own humanity

EJR ©