LIFE WORK
dying is labor too
adjuncts & interns
know what I mean
we name each bed bug
and watch ‘em grow
go (to college) and eventually
disappoint
like everything else
when crawling for cover
put your ear to the earth
hear the sick clock
breathing/wheezing
loose change in the lungs
quarters on the eyelids of the dead
(a waste of gas money if you ask me)
technically you are what happens
to time too
what if heaven
can’t pay the rent either
venerated and squatting
eventually evicted
literally holy
halos and names
litter the streets
like floss sticks and flame
ing hot cheetos bags
weed smoke and language
dissipate into the æther
unrecognized as music
like this poem
a scream that never ends
a renegade wave
against all laws
the tedious physics of faces
sad and angry and losing
it and how and why
aren’t we all
leveled
leveraged by love
any perilous loyalty
to silence or other violences
sad is the animal that hunts itself
open fire-hydrants of emotions
blurring and bleeding
into one another
in a cacophony of what-the-fuck
is happening
it is fall
and the leaves are on fire
like the rest of the world
everything
trembles
everything
barely hangs on
the torn tendon
of so-called democracy
ash and riot
ruin and run
motherfuckers
run
I’m not a physicist
but we’re made of molecules
and poems
probably pills
and a few songs
we keep for emergencies
a mess
of endless mental static
and emotional blur
call this futurelessness
what you will
but I am afflicted with it
dampened by this particular
mist or fog
and ADD and debt and depression
and and and...I zombie
walk buying milk
and shit and I don’t need
acting normal
through the so-called world
sending emails
emails emails emails
please
kill me
not literally
mom
if you’re reading this
the truth is I miss
the floating world
we called our trailer
and the dirt below
where the creatures
we cared for
were born
and went to die
I miss the 4-foot grass
and dancing to 8-tracks
of Tina Turner
and Fleetwood Mac
I miss walking
through the pines
to the lake
the truth is
I am afraid
all the time
and I am afraid
of anyone
who isn’t
just 12 easy payments
why can’t we reinvent time
or at least live
in the curve of it
have what we need
want and deserve
clean water
air light food
friendship love
parallel to a spiritual
commons
this reasonable dream
burst not by grass
but the brute fact
of our systems
forsaken by
some god who lives
on our filthy money
how about the sun
come
for once
let us live
peacefully
among
the green
green sun
Sampson Starkweather
Sampson Starkweather is the author of the do-si-do double chapbook for the end of the world A Week in Late Capitalism / Ancient Capitalistic Proverbs from b l u s h, and other books and chapbooks, including Until the Joy of Death Hits, pop/love audio-visual GIF poems from Spork Press, and Flux Capacitor, an audiobook collaboration with friends from Black Cake Records. He is a founding editor of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry press. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.