CONSTRUCTION SITE
Quiet
calling the hawk
over sleeping construction sites
searching frozen trucks dozers for food
Half finished houses
sitting in acetylene sun
wind shredding surveyor flags
Coyotes
standing at attention
on naked medians
Blocks of vacant lots
PVC pipe protruding from graded earth:
waving hands
sawed off before they could signal
help
Plastic wrappers
scratching cement slabs
In the deserted distance
a nail gun shooting
silence
CITY OF FORGETTING
“Bin Laden was shot today,”
a high-ranking Marine smiles,
“They wrapped his torso in bacon before tossing it
into a sea of bloodsucking bottom-dwellers–”
In Los Angeles, a child is going to bed hungry
the open sore of street gone gangrenous
Across town
bloated suits sit down to gorge themselves on gourmet meals
sizzling short sales
fat trimmed from corpses still warm from Afghanistan
Anyone who has been outside the meat locker knows
they are serving up the past
medium-rare
Slaughter isn’t cheap-
the butcher must be paid his fair market share of amputated limbs from body farms
carving out 99% of hides left hanging from hooks
over factory floors
The rest of LA
is left to lick foam from the mouths of returning soldiers-
swig human waste from water faucets
The orgy of knives and forks must go on stabbing choice cuts
Most of the preoccupied population would kill for a spoonful of freezer-burned gristle,
bellies inflated by hunger
Scarfing down bowls of bloodshot eyes mocking the gluttony of ignorance
no one would feed dogs
The drunken desperation to forget
drink and forget the city is eating its own flesh
Stuffing mouths so full no one can speak for themselves
deliriously swallowing
tongues
Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes is a native Southern California poet. He as college degrees in Surgical Technology and Religion and Theology. His poems have appeaered in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. He has worked with world reknowned sculptor, Roger Rigorth, at LA’s ArtCorps and his work has been translated into several languages. Ish (as he prefers to be called) is currently assistant editor of the Magee Park Poets Anthology. Currently Ish is writing a second CD of lyrics for opera singer Andrea Hoerken’s new group, Tender Art.
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