Photo by Ed Robertson
Put a brand on everything. Painted or laser-engraved if necessary. If needed, embellish it bigger and bolder. Whatever it takes to cover up the old. Now, it is new and this time, different. Today like never before. A brief glance with preoccupied eyes.
Tether it together, end to end, like buoys on a string. We will provide the power. The electricity of the night with buzzing intensity. Inaudible but realized. Not until the surface is wrapped in power cords like a dragnet will constraint be achieved.
The gutter fills with soggy paper. Rushing to the nearest drain where the artificial pulp congregates and solidifies. The streets flood, and the water recedes into empty offices and high rise condominiums.
The cityscape canvas is ignited by fire, slow and blue, like burning ink from the front page of the Sunday newspaper. It burns until the picture is vaporized, and weightless dust remains. Like television static, grey and white and black. The infinitesimal parts of it vibrate like bits of sediment in a prospector’s pan. At a distance, it is static, the true spirit of the word.
Attrition brought on by expansion. The nearsighted and callous stop at the first drink of water. A precarious land harbors forward movement with booming consumption.
The balance is struck and then submerged like hot steel in water. The branded walls are brought down, seeds sown in the rubble. The freed future is rewritten by budding hands; green stems with common roots.
The Author
Warren Woods writes exclusively via typewriter and is inspired by many authors of fiction novels, screenplays and short stories. In addition to the short stories, character vignettes and poems available on his site, Warren Woods is currently producing work in a longer format and is exploring publication.
Warren Woods, Des Moines, IA
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