ANTI-MILITARISTIC STOMP

Anti-Militaristic Stomp

An anti-war dance performance:
The pneumatic clamor of marching penetrating the pinna,
hammering the human anvil, a copper clapper touting death.
Their gesturing and posturing mimetic of special forces-
rough-hewn yet photogenic.

The battlefield: Lincoln Center, the applause not American discordant clamor
but the steady unison of Europeans pounding palms. This is participatory performance- partisan, pulsating. Loud gleeful guffaws, an audience stupefied or in stitches, the exclamatory whooshing exhalations of front row ticketholders as ten dozen dancers execute staccato movements with militant precision.

Rhythmic parading alters precipitously, reiterative, even alliterative, an invading army
trooping over a tremulous suspension bridge. Their footsteps not balletic-hard hoofbeats of tap, metallic as a cadre of construction workers striding on pointe with steel shod boots.

Tumult, pandemonium: performance peaks beyond proscenium-ten squads, ballerinas body-armored plunge into spectators with ersatz bayonets. It’s anti-warfare pantomime, surreal until the killing starts.

AK-47 slugs wrongly demarked blanks weren’t- the weapons wrangler fatally fouled up ordering from Amazon’s online gun shop. Theatre became war zone since the audience was packing, their Second Amendment Constitutional right.

“It was shock and awe,” three Iranian émigrés gushed while enjoying the livestream. Onsite critics raved, later waving blood stained jazz hands quietly to avoid antagonizing mourners at a silent vigil for the fallen. Tears were star bursts, striking iron flooring sparking indignation igniting publicity-a media blitz.

A populist podcast touted “directorial elegance”-a “masterful production surpassing the Roman Coliseum’s death matches” in “emulating conflict with verisimilitude” while “warning how horrific war can be.”

Lying in the gutter

a trashy deposit-
filthy clothing, skin
smoky from tarry
melting asphalt
or
is he BIPOC-such
term itself an imprecation
a dehumanization-
irrelevant- poverty
blackens spirit and flesh.
No pillow, no cover let
him be but surprise-
book by his side worn
like a declaration of honor.

Landscape

no cultivated plants
pedestrian parkway sprouting
weeds- broad bellied
portulaca or lady’s fingers- stilted
pink florets tendering
to themselves

gray pigeons pace restive
peck repetitively
at crumbs, grit
or cracked cement

polished vehicles promenade
flashing the misty highway as
darkness transforms
red taillights
into rubies and
headlamps into beacons

for elders
it’s paradisical, a twilight oasis
amid urban granite where
gnashing gears of car engines
shriek gibberish
intelligible only
to the hard of hearing
as matrons in worn frocks
recline in shadows
cast by halogen fixtures
on skeletal poles
reminiscing, dozing or
gazing transfixed
at gay passing brights

this
is how they fill
their final hours,
shallow exhalations
scented by gasoline exhausts,
alone, weary,
forgotten

Why do the birds still sing?

Drowsy she woke moist
to a morning of darkness
the hour deranged
clock arms wrestled back
by sinewed hands as if
man would overpower time itself
while outside black aftermath
of bombing, eerie echoes lingering
in punctured ear drums yet

birds chirping vivacious
callous in gloom
oblivious but
are they ignorant
of the changing Earth,

Autumnal scorch
that never used to be
the gory roar of wars
shrieks of mortality

on shifting draughts
the noughts of death?

They too are afflicted
by reverse bioengineering
by grotesque blooming mushrooms
where puffy clouds should be

such toxic fumes, laments
of souls in limbo. Why
do the birds sing merrily
as if Earth was still heavenly?