Plattenbau Persephone Praxis

The white noise is wasting me
A thousand spinning plates and nobody’s doing the dishes
Breathe in, the body rises exhale and the mind sinks
Cloying brains brought back from the brink
Another stimulant, another drink
With coffee-stained nerves and finger-stained keys
Furrowing digital fields, hands lashed to the plough
Let it be this; let it be now
Searching for meaning in the depths of the well
In the wiring inside, in the ringing of bells

The coding of elegance, the gatekeeping of eloquence
Where sparking switchboards dazzle and dance into deference
Where starry eyes meet light pollution
Where word of mouth meets gathered feet and dissolution
We’re each kept in the dark as the black-bagging begins
Kicked out on the street for their sins. I won’t be dragging
My feet any more than they’re dragged through the mud
Hands riddled with wages; fists dripping with blood

Why do the hungry pick all the food?
Why do the naked sew sequins, secluded in sweatshops?
Why do the capitalists blame those without jobs?
We’re all in, all in up to our necks
Horizons foreshortened with your nose to the ground
The wasting starts younger than birth
The coping narcotics bloom neglect
And a face in the dirt

A beating to sate latent hurt
And, after all, things can’t get worse
When it’s the third time this year
You’ve carried friends from a hearse
As if for hunger we yearn
As if to cauterise a burn

I gazed into the tubes to find reason
And cathode rays beamed through
My each, every nerve, Persephone
The natrescent glow of the after-dark Styx
And skin of white phosphorus
Leave me transfixed on the monitor
And I see you there
And squinting revealing these pixels depicting your fear
The marble as cold as objectification
No will of your own
Still passed between unfeeling hands
With head to the glass, I wept