Courteous, the Self, Superfluous, the State
Courteous, the self, superfluous, the State.
Hyacinth explodes above its corpse, that citizens inhale.
Squeezed cologne, complex to let no single note prevail.
On my throat its wetness will evaporate.
Vestiges will linger while we pace and wait.
Generations died before the serfs were made to kiss the wheel,
Strap their twisted backs upon the clock and hammer glowing steel.
Slowly we'll relearn the right to sleep in late,
Let the robots labor while we copulate.
Rested, smiling, satisfied, we reinvoke our Uniondale
Touch our fingers to an inner wall, electrify the veil.
Anarchism rises as the Zero State.
Feel our common body's metabolic rate.
These, my fingertips remark the sketching of the seal:
None beneath another citizen to be coerced to kneel.
Several hours daily pledged our common fate.
Many days will pass between this day and that.
It'll be annoying. Ordered whiskey, got cheap zinfandel.
I dislike this foreign cheese. I think it has a funny smell.
All the ex-police are getting awful fat.
This remains the target that we're fired at.
Freedom from the rage encoiled in each muscle cell,
Overheating all the circuitry until it's bright as hell.
Let's intend a world where each is each's cat.
Alley kitties cozy in their habitat.
Todd Jackson
A veteran Gods & Radicals poet, Todd Jackson has also published in Snakeskin Poetry Ezine; in Circe's Cauldron: Pagan Poems and Tales of Magic and Witchcraft published by Biblioteca Alexandrina; in The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry; in ActiveMuse; in The Q Gallery: Art of the Quarantine.