The Metronome Effect of Ping Pong (poem)

The Metronome Effect of Ping Pong (poem)

It was a time of half-mast flags

Aurora, Newtown, Oak Creek,

Oklahoma

earthbound by gravity

limp on rusted poles

sunbleached

not so much as a breath of wind

On machine street's golden last gleaming

where the sun sets long shadows

on the spires of the citadels

& the rain falls gently on rustbelt America,

harken back to the great migration

of the early 20th century

black men and women on the redemption road

from the sweat and fiery hatred

of the south - to the promise of the northlands

the great cities with their metallic facades

and their promise of jobs

and as they flowed as one great black river

into the cities the whites fled to the suburbs

and beyond - leaving metropolis

to the great barbarian horde

and alas, for a time it was good

America - center of manufacturing

hope for the world - birthplace of the middle class

the factories steamed and shuddered

whistles blew as trumpets

from some great golden colossus

a capitalist utopia

a pinnacle of wax wing dreams

a promise too good… too beautiful to last

and alas the waters began to recede

and the stink of the riverbed

with its rusted cans

and dead fish

and broken bottles

began to fill the air

America the center of

manufacturing

where factories dotted the landscape

like spines of a half buried leviathan

switched to a service economy

and sent its jobs overseas

and traded the futures and hopes of its

children for cheaply made chinese goods

and fast food and materialism

In a span of 10 years

Michigan lost 50% of its manufacturing jobs

50,000 factories closed

6 million people out of work

and Detroit became a city in exile

with 100,000 empty and abandoned homes

something like Pripyet but without the radiation

hookers bums drugs money

copper wire vultures

men wandering the street muttering

"they sent my job to may-hee-co…"

as the snow fell on rusted storefronts

shuttered buildings

through broken windows

onto empty shop floors

in the streets ashcan fires burn

men sing the blues

and the rust drips like blood onto the snow filled streets

the city is bleeding

the nation is bleeding

wounded

the middle class served as a buffer between the wealthy 2% and the poor wretched masses

without that buffer there is no choice but revolution

let the arias ring forth from the opera houses

to the streets below

let art and culture be the saviors of the cities

let their promise return

austerity be damned - let us reach for the fiery golden cup - the dream deferred - the promise borne aloft on the fabric of the flag - woven into its threads

take to the streets and wrench back what was always ours from those who would feast like scavengers on the bloated corpse of America - on its bones and sinew

and maybe our cities will rise again on the plains

and once again be beacons of hope to the dispossessed

until that time perhaps its best to leave the flags at half mast

sometimes their flapping obscures our vision and keeps us from seeing the great cities burning like ashcans in the distant night

until we wonder why ash keeps falling upon our own doorsteps

gathering in drifts across the landscape