"World on Fire" Michael Brownstein

honeylocust · Tar Sands Joined: Jul 15, 2005 Posts: 34

An epic poem/story on industrial civilization...quite powerful. Here is a quote:

"...As long as the ball scores keep rolling in, as long as some unlooked-for dalliance presents itself to your little ego dickie now and then. As long as the gasoline keeps pouring in.

But that's been explained already-you're living an airtight collective hallucination.

There is no gasoline.

It stopped flowing this morning, remember?

Why do I have to keep reminding you?

It's gone-along with your job, your family, your 'way of life'.

In reality you're not riding around bored and queasy and querulous-you're cowering stark naked in a filthy shack in the middle of nowhere.

Nobody told you it would end like this, did they?

They promised you the world while ripping you off from day one.

Now you know. Only now it's one day too late.

All you have left is your breath.

You'd better follow that.

Breathe slowly.

In and out. In and out.

That's it."