I feel the Solar Sinai drip drop slash oil-fueled hail,
harvest Heavenly Star of David flames,
vultures across the horizon. I hear helicopters above me.
I hear them every day –
ambulances, cop cars.
Cyclic pitfalls, murky awareness, aristocratic heights.
I want to cry. Tears rip heaven asunder.
Flares devour flares in chemotherapy denial
highlight Tomorrow’s Anxiety Shelter.
I want to step outside and feel the breeze lift me
three inches off the ground
away from the game of corpses
in heaven’s altitude chasms.
Why do tears keep dwelling inside me?
I want to close my eyes;
I’m so tired.
Perturbed by petty coat consumers,
draped in see-through tapestries of gum-spam fury,
with hygiene repositories and dust mite landmines,
filled with amorous spite—
Plebian creeds, post-mortem atheists’ flashlight hope. . .
a nuclear clarity, sequins around noose necks
shattered oceans, already dried up,
up azure forests’ luxurious sky
and I let swaying lamplights go unnoticed,
consequential to tv poison libertines
taking carcinogenic Ubers into clouds — highways,
they drove themselves
those Thunberg signs read, the embers of tomorrow
will be warning you tomorrow night
revised your soul of dramas, dreams, crafts of politicians,
who depreciated ignorance, levitated justice from this earth,
and floated in the sun, where stars go to die.
I feel your windowpane stares shatter mosaic smiles
in the Holy Shrine of Now!
I just want to scream and escape
Aaaaaaaum!
supernovae seven billion sons, daughters, oracle-less
and isolated,
half-shirtless, in boxers, panties, only – and a mask
underneath the regalia
Drag ethereal bodies across their homes, nations,
the universe
power cathedrals of money, shake hands, kiss presidents,
make love to lobbyists – and fear it.
Awakening, I feel the silent bass boom my brains out,
standing still, claw scalp,
TV terror screams in the background
I want the noise to stop!
Skin exploding hands crawl
I glare at the mirror
and the Solar Sinai drip drops
drape down my spine.
I see through my clothes, my tapestry of gum-spam fury.
My callous hands pound the silent sirenic mirror,
gasping for air, limited by ocean shards,
strangled by quicksand cliffs,
upon our Nation’s reflection.
My hands bloodied, my country masked:
not knowing who we’re fighting.
I transcend the meditative doormat slumber –
slither across the floor, the nation, the universe,
raise the holy hammer
and bang gong!
Dear America—
Where were you when I inhaled Spirit
and exhaled a cloud of lilies?
Where were you when I oscillated between
sunrise and sunset, between god and man?
Did you forget your own forgetfulness,
submerge your mosaic body
in an ocean of stars?
Or did you drift off into night,
where dust belongs?
Cry Vayikra! stay calm…
Please politicians please! Please police please!
Please healthcare workers, physicians please!
PLEASE! STAY CALM… CRY
VAYIKRA! VAYIKRA! —
Talk cold, dark politics until you fall apart.
Insane alchemy ventures destroy very well
the healthy flames.
O, how you hypnotize the ashes & drive me insane!
‘CRY VAYIKRA! STAY CALM…’
How do we return home?
Joshua Corwin © 2020
First published in BEAT Generation.
Local Gems Press 2020.
Joshua Corwin, a Los Angeles native, is a neurodiverse, Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and Spillwords Press Publication of the Month winner. His debut poetry collection Becoming Vulnerable (2020) details his experience with autism, addiction, sobriety and spirituality. He has lectured at UCLA, read with 2013 US Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco, and performed at the 2020 National Beat Poetry Festival. His Beat poetry is to be anthologized alongside Ferlinghetti, Hirschman, Ford, Coleman and weiss late 2020. He hosts the poetry podcast “Assiduous Dust” and teaches poetry to neurodiverse individuals and autistic addicts in recovery at The Miracle Project, an autism nonprofit.
Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.
Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA),
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