for ionesco, and for today

« Un rhinocéros ! Ça alors ! »

nazi purists transforming all around us bubbling out the walls

golden intellectualism of blood

wetting the floor

overturning roller skates as

boomers in ugly plaid skirts n stiff collars

trip over one another

until we can’t tell if we’re solitary or in solidarity

stamping out the

mentalité de foule 

foule — fool — it’s all the same

no cognates are false if you’re

an existentialist

give me the release of — wind — between

two ivory walls

sipping tea out of a depression

in the cobblestones

my hand on your thigh —

on the railing

as we’re railing

against conformity

oh, give me your hand god damn it

the steps fall off your feet like old skin

as you ascend

— do you feel it?

steeper and steeper

until you hear a knock — a come in —

and you realize you don’t know what chair 

to sit in

the comfy one not good for conversation?

the hard one positioned well to face him?

you pull the comfy one closer

he smiles

you take off your words like clothes

ai! how else do you fight

the modulating undulating modulating

fucking catastrophe of the

“free” world

without stamping your foot

without banging your fist

you can’t turn the elephant in the room into a

rhinocéros