Burn

 Burn

 

They have the same haircut—

ugly twins, staring at screens

at a village of the damned.

Cultivated their thick mops

of clot-stoppered tops

like flowers growing on flowers,

never seen a bucket,

never taken a plunge,

never wrung it through the rinser,

or cut through grease

where silence has lease—

while they stare at screens.

Undercut, grade one trim

around their pocked sides,

from top knot to nape:

those who don’t smoke, vape,

while they stare at screens.

Not one, not two - forming queues,

clutching 250 riyal Stanleys,

with straws sticking out of lids

pricking like nipples once sucked,

not forgotten—lately wiped soil

from baby bottoms—

while they stare at screens.

 

And you? You know

they don’t want to learn,

they don’t want to burn,

while you stare through screens.

Walking toward you

passing by, using screens

to screen the unwanted eye,

while you're reading books

to avoid the looks of all

you ignorant asses and fools

that lighted the way,

who spent your lives

borrowing currency from usurers

walking the schools,

while you stare through screens.

Your watching window gleams,

fluent in bubble-tea dialects,

words foreign to you, to me,—

new songs that drop

laying their Easter Eggs

in thirst traps, lampshading you,

mansplaining a soft launch,

all doomscrolling, ghosted,

burnt and toasted—

while you stare through screens.

 

We are Faber, we are Benjamin,

from outside looking in,

observing with our mocking grins,

and we put up screens.

We don’t talk things,

for courage is as courage sings—

and sings the body electric,

but only hears it through ear pods,

piped like the ire of angry gods

with flour-dusted aprons

on which they washed their hands,

and left this October Country

for other lands—

and we put up screens.

We are reminded of what

we already know:

we know the meaning of things

and we turn the pages, turn,

but those who don’t build must burn—

who think hell's a fable,

negligent counting of the cradle,

and witness pedestrians arrested,

never beaten, only bested,

and what will be has always been

blazing while we put up screens.