They're designing park benches

so that homeless people can't sleep on them

and placing metal spikes beneath overpasses

so they can't be used as shelter.

Jerry Seinfeld says Palestine doesn't exist

and that sometimes socks go missing in the dryer,

wocka wocka

ha ha ha

it's funny because it's a witty observation

about life's everyday little goofy goofs.

Fast food wrappers blow in the wind

like the leaves used to do.

Duct-taped gargoyles with garbage bag wings

peer down at the din of civilization

as we march over the sidewalk sleepers

to our Jobs,

stepping over dead bodies

while staring at our phones

and counting the minutes

til we can go home to our sofas

and watch wocka wocka comedians

and shovel SSRIs into our faces

from large plastic bowls

so the crushing beauty of our world

and the knowledge of our mortality

doesn't topple us like Jenga blocks

and make us weep like open fire hydrants.

In this din they don't want you to feel.

They don't want you to think.

They don't want you to hear.

They keep it all CLANG, CLANG, CLANG,

BUY, BUY, BUY,

WORK, WORK, WORK,

WOCKA, WOCKA, WOCKA,

so that you can't feel your body.

So that you can't hear the songs.

There's bird song

and whale song

and heart song

and lung song.

There's fire song

and sea song

and wind song

and tree song.

There's ancestor song

and mountain song

and sun song

and wolf song,

and lots of others I bet;

I can't hear any of them.

Oh, except thought song,

which blasts through my head

like a sonic homeless deterrent

in a shopping center alleyway,

and,

like them,

I have nowhere else to go.

____________

Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.