ON A TREADMILL WATCHING CNN
After Bob Hicok
Never before have I so resembled a Zombie.
They – it? – are preoccupied by food.
I – it? – am preoccupied by food.
They – zonbi? – express their preoccupation
through groans, which are uttered in gentle rasping cadences
escaping their decaying craws. I – hungry? –
convey my preoccupation through facebook statues,
in which my fingers type a lament for an empty stomach.
They – the living dead? – are shackled to an insatiable hunger.
I – a slave to the media – am shackled to an insatiable
hunger for pizza and size one jeans. They –
bokor’s slaves? – possess no will of their own.
I – prediabetic left-walking emotional colander of a gym rat? –
diet.
Isn’t a zombie technically still a human
and accountable? Aren’t I technically still a human
and accountable? In a logical sense, in an honest sense,
if Gray’s Anatomy still holds? To give you a sense
of how raspy their groans are, imagine a tractor
exposed to the elements for several decades,
outside that ancient grocery store by the highway,
its rusty claws rooted in the pitched-paved earth
while hot dry air dances around its dusty engine,
that’s how raspy their groans are. They echo through the night,
and through your mind, for good measure. And let’s be frank,
we typically desire that sound, we typically desire to get to the gym
by 5 so we can get to work by 7 and beat
the hunger, hunger is death this time of day.
How far would you walk for a burger? For the dollar
to get a cupcake? An inch, a foot, a month, a century?
Now you will ask me, what are you going
to buy food and cook before supper? Before the sun
falls behind the golden fields and green hills
and the green fields and golden hills, into the ocean,
to the right of the dilapidated diner and to the left
of the dilapidated diner, down the street, through
the Fast-food tower and behind the Donut
Factory, onto the high way, beside the liquor store
and the Weight Watchers, behind the 711 and the café
and the other café and the other other café and the other
other other café and the café that closed, where I swear,
publishers met. Since I’m contemplating, how much is a speck
or sprinkle of a soul worth, be it monetary
or sentimental, now that the children’s groaning is growing?
* * * * *
THE CITY OF PERPETUAL AUTUMN
Leaves the color of ripe pumpkins,
red wine, pie crusts, and apple cider,
flood the air from morning to dusk
leaving rows of barren trees.
As night falls, roads and byways
slumber underneath a carpet
of rot. Each morning, without fail,
these ways are made clear.
Each tree blooms with dying leaves.
Each cloud heavy with salt water.
Each sun beam obscured by the cold
creeping pace of a winter that never comes.
A city stuck in a seasonal stalemate.
Pregnant and dying with each passing day.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
A little about Rose Theresa Booker: She resides in San Francisco, CA while attending San Francisco State University. Currently she is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing while tutoring undergraduates. To find out more, please visit her blog at rosebooker.wordpress.com.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
DM du Jour 