“We are the apocalypse” -
Anthony Hopkins in Freud’s Last Session.
”Ja.”
Twenty twenty-five, and no one is coming to yank
the cart out of the muck.
If we’re not stranded in it, we cling to the sides,
shirk sizable wheels. This one
will be for the books. If books will continue
to exist. A people, perplexed. Some, resigned. Some, elated.
And yet, our feet drag. Our hands grasp at nothing.
I hold my heart outside my chest and use it as a megaphone.
This is too Tolkien-esque, too Fahrenheit, too Giver, to stay quiet.
Hitler, at least,
thought about his people. You, money. Without it, you are just
a giant
zit of nothingness. Great humans are made of compassion,
of insight. Assholes, not so much.
I call an asshole when I see one, tell you
what my ancestors figured out long ago: people’s feelings
belong to the people.
And feelings will out.
Karma’s a bitch. Ja. She cackles at you, at
your hideous hats. She spins her endless yarn
and wheels away fortunes.
Fuck you, I say to incoming ruddy faces, branded
tchotchkes.
Karma is a bitch,
and she’ll come for you. Jawohl. Karma is a bitch,
and the end exempts no one.
Flesh and bone and blood and even star dust have
an expiration date. For now, I cling
to the rattling cart and seize words that make
me free, help my blood flow.
I’m not afraid of you.
Ja, belts my thudding heart. Let’s go.
I choose good. Ja. I believe in good. Ja.
It bears repeating, you asshole:
We are the apocalypse.
