Glass and Steel

This glass and steel,
glint and shine,
of ingenuity and labour built--
but the purpose?

Less transparent, it seems,
nothing but a lie
with its sheen in midday sun,
blinding the world in its glory:
feminist's phallocentrism,
I wonder enveloped at Bryant Park.

That myth of an American Dream,
I cannot help but think,
standing upright as Masses
pass me by,
the only other potent image
me under Old Glory, eyes fixed
on its tattered body being whipped
unapologetically by gusts.
Still staring I cannot but wonder:
why is it so?

No, not the fact of the myth.
For me, that is all too clear,
remembering the body left
for dead on Wyoming fence,
haunting melody of Wainwright:
scarecrow, scarecrow,
stark lyrics mimicking stark
reality, no need to dress up erasure.

It seems so far in the past,
and yet so close,
fresh wounds of my own.
Just yesterday:
changed form, same message,
vitriol repackaged, as words--
laundry list of slurs
lacking cessation of breath,
but no less painful:

My own leaden tears sitting
in bed, nursing a perpetually
wounded soul, at twelve
bud already tempered by mighty frost,
new consciousness in
the wake of disconnect.

Reminded of its permanence,
I repeat the fact of myth.
Too well I know I cannot have
what others can have at a basic level,
written in law, laced in social expectation:

I am more than this, I tell myself.
Yes, I am and yet...
I am bound to this consciousness,
sexual partner inseparable from
treatment of the act.
Both blessing and curse
it cannot be undone,
unlike vision it
never loses clarity.

So why do I have to live this?
I pause for a moment, making sense
of jumbled thought as I am
greeted by something more solemn:
Why do so many endure this?
I plumb the depths of my mind
before the final question emerges
from the brambles:
why do so many miss Old Glory in tatters?

There are answers to these questions,
somewhere in this body of mine
they reside,
but looking up at skyscrapers
around Bryant Park,
they don't need to spoken.

The glory in the glint,
the wonder of the steel,
the job, the money,
promised through adorned facades:
renunciation of hope
never a thought
in light of the Dream of
quiet consciousness.

Even through deconstruction,
Dream spurious to me,
I am momentarily enraptured.
For just a second, still staring up,
wounded soul is mended,
Old Glory suddenly replaced
by giant LED version.

The sight forces me to
grab my stomach,
sudden sharp pain,
falling to the ground as my mind
seeks to slip out of consciousness
temporarily.

Even in the most potent
disavowals of the material,
the last thing I see before
waking up to an unfamiliar face
is glass and steel.
Unable to speak, heavy thoughts
are a deluge in my head:
we are doomed, we are doomed
by this glass and steel,

And all falls silent.

Spectacle(s)

It seems odd to find spectacles in a graveyard. After all, what is it that the dead really can see? Or, as importantly, what would they want to see now that they are dead? Alas, nothing. But this all is part of the spectacle of body preservation. To embalm, bury and even entomb there are specific procedures, money, and a great deal of time required. There is, perhaps, no greater example of the spectacle than Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans where this photograph was taken. Here opulence is not hidden. Featuring above-ground monuments and mausoleums (in the style of Parisian cemeteries), some are indeed simple, but by and large you are in awe at towering stone structures and tombs that make you want to uncover the mysterious lives the enshrined once lived. While all of the spectacle seems useless coming from someone who does not believe in an afterlife, who sees death not as an ascent but instead a decomposition, it is nonetheless beautiful in part because it seems so futile. While I may see no spiritual value in the cemetery, rays of sunshine in the late afternoon dance over the stones and cast shadows I have never imagined before. The beauty lies in this absurdity.

As I pass by the spectacles on my way out, I know that they have no purpose, but it is precisely because they will sit there waiting, until taken or disrupted by weather, that they are illuminating. They are not for the dead. The dead cannot see any longer; their eyes have decomposed. They are but skeletons now, frames of their former glories and shortcomings. Instead, this human possession is there for the living, spectacles to preserve the spectacle of faith, reminding me of the lengths to which families go to provide a comfortable eternal life.

A Grim Beginning

I always find myself searching for a bit of peace and quiet. Yet I always end up like the soda can in this picture, trapped beneath a layer of ice, aware of my situation but unable to break through. I know exactly what I want but am completely powerless to change it. I try with everything I have. Every bit of spirit pours out, fueled by any dream ever conceived in my oversized head. From the obnoxious desire in fourth grade to be a weatherman to the desire now to see political artifice be obscured by genuine change, I push forward, unrelenting. But then comes that terrible moment. The sun vanishes. The flowers seem to lilt. The air stiffens and becomes heavy. Every bit of spirit is useless. That is the situation now. A grim beginning. A critical juncture that could mark a relatively consistent set of behaviours and goals or a dramatic upheavel that could set me down a path that I do not want to take. Thus I think most deeply and carefully, hoping for a way out of the listless air and unassuming malaise. What I feel most dear about depends on it.