The crowd hovering around the entrance to the Hospital for the Incurable seemed slight at first. The hospital was the cornerstone of the city of Le Frères du Plume. Many of its citizens derived their livelihood from being directly employed by, or providing needed services to, the one hundred-twenty year-old institution.
Placards posted along the street proclaimed the hanging of Old Grimes. I thought that impossible. Old Grimes had been hung a month ago. Wasn’t he dead and forgotten? But there it was, a rare rehanging, and I hadn’t noticed the announcements at all.…
...continue reading
They want the perks of death without its drawbacks.
They finance the idea
that consciousness is distorted
data, always delayed, the self
a costly entitlement, but they can fix that.
Shrink-wrap the underclass. One-time payments
to the families of liberals, with the proviso
there won’t be any more. But they too,
the deciders, in an odd fellow-feeling,
want sleep. Vast doses of sleep
are better than psychotropics
and trophy-wives. The essential
liberty is liberty from dreams.
The poor, of course, in their warehouses become
piped-in reruns, but the masters
go on buying and speculating
through clever proxies. Eventually we (in a sense)
leave earth, in a translucent block
like a plaque. Lines on graphs
go up and up, unseen. Eventually
we-in-a-sense huddle
for energy around the last stars, then
in the ergosphere of black holes,
but even those dissolve.…
...continue reading
Bring me the debris of the world,
the rotten,
the discarded,
the maimed.
Bring me the dried carcasses
left on the ground after winter.
Bring me your weak,
your empty shells,
remains.
And I’ll show you
the resilience of the plants.
I’ll show you how to come back
from under earth,
dirt on your face,
how to push
your way up
and stand
in the democracy
of the weeds,
as if disaster,
terror,
history
never happened.
As if we’re here
forever
to stay.
– Claudia Serea…
...continue reading
You could never get Grams out of her easy chair. She seemed to cleave to it like a limpet. She even had a chamber pot poorly secreted between it and the scullery wall beside the fire: almost on the hearth. No chance of her getting a chill – chilblains maybe. It must have been that which smelled like a stagnant rock pool.
Her face was dark and wrinkled and her chins stacked like little tyres above one of a series of floral scarves which were clandestinely replaced when they faded beyond recognition.
…
...continue reading
You weren’t in a box
the army sent home from aboard.
Or those epics that Hollywood turned out.
You were simply a prime example
of knowing how to follow orders.
You were no housekeeper
but you could iron a uniform
so that no crease showed
and you sure could fold a flag.
You may not have known
where the bodies are buried
but you remember where they fell.
You bedded down in trenches.
You crossed a field
knowing full well that it was mined.
You polished your shoes while afraid.
You clung to your rifle when homesick.
In action, your thoughts were of home.
At home, your thoughts were of action.
You never complained.
Except about the rations.
You didn’t know he was just a boy.…
...continue reading
This millennium has grown too old for the world. As have you, my darling.
Outside, the street crackles with excitement; packed with revellers, dancers, grilled chicken, doughnuts, drums, poppers, horns, and a million streamers and balloons. A conga line weaves through the crowd. Glow sticks whirl in a galaxy of motion.
I shut the window and sit down beside you. I draw back the sheet to check your temperature. Your chest barely tells the rise and fall of life. You’ve been splintered with illness and treatment, dismantled and reconstructed. When your health could no longer be rebuilt, you were reduced to apologies and pitying looks.
You will always be magnificent to me.…
...continue reading
early before daybreak I wander through our house, the
floorboards creak to remind me that you died
I look for your silhouette, hear ice in your glass
and feel your hands sliding across my bare back and thighs
I may never feel that I was enough
our discord longed for the hours and days of
perfectly timed harmony
the line of your jaw and depth of your need
left me reeling every time, you shook your head and told
me there was no one quite like me
in the night I still wait for you, quietly
pushing away your last photograph
I try not to remember the way your voice sounded, and
regret that I couldn’t tell you about Jim Harrison
– Heather Brager…
...continue reading