The Eulogy
Everything is fine disappears each day
one bubble at a time.
the performance
shatters in a finger snap.
The hypnosis is broken.
How are you.
Broken.
The tea of our conversation is a second over-steeped,
a touch over-boiled for ironed-over taste buds.
Only ask questions with the answer implied
We prefer surface dwellers over truth tellers
that solve for x with why.
so when I ask how are you
Lie.
Reply "doing fine"
pull from your supply of small talk
tell me of those subscriptions you never finish the first free month.
This poem is made possible by apocalypse.
a euolgy for a dying world
you may turn on your axis
throw sun over dawn and dusk
Trust you are numbered
you've wandered through Deuteronomy and Numbers
made pillage from villages plundered
now you must deal what strikes before thunder
The heart of this nation no longer knocks
It’s death rattles at the door
It’s resonant tone won’t grant entry into my home
bloat blue in the face on that side of the peephole:
I can't spare you from this cold you inflicted on people.
A moment by the mantle
is never contained to the fire pit.
America lingers,
convinces you more woods required.
And if none provided,
will be forced to use force.
And the next doorbell that rings
won't be answered by you.
A young man collects a bonus for his bones as he answers his country's call.
he solders hisself into a soldier and soldiers obey command.
His demander and thief spins the globe and pokes at lands
copious in oil opium and gold.
There's motion now detected at the front door.
An officer removes his cap.
A chaplain provides a verse.
A mother crumples into a fraction at the math.
And a purple heart is traded for the one that pumped blood.
Years did our knock go ignored.
The Morse code encoded in our beat.
The SOS transposed on the one and three.
We kept it brief.
If invited in, we preached of our God and savior,
Abolition.
Help us fulfill her mission of manumission.
How many doors opened to listen?
How many more remain locked at our knock?
A little stamped in the boot was a mild inconvenience.
Now shit fertilizes your chin.
It touches your sixth sense.
You never thought it had a scent.
Curdled milk on the kitchen counter
catching spores
let it fester.
The air is no longer free.
Your lungs become bloated bags of meat.
each inhale begins to fail
and we'll weep on this side of the black veil
as we make preparations.
Call cousins
next of kin
Replace “ if ” with “ when.”
exchange glances in the room when we think its time
We will tell stories of your doom
I think its time.
Everything is fine no longer exists.
How will this country die?
The same way that it lived.