FUCK STATE | A WORKSHOP POEM
The first veteran: fatigued
stiff-jointed in a wheelchair,
stirrups, the full
thing, moving
against a stream of black and mustard
overalls. Stone drunk.
An aluminum rod beams out his cargo leg
anchoring a scuffed plastic foot.
Colors
you only see in hospitals, the blue of
Red Cross emergency blankets
covering a busker's loose
baggage. Exam table wax paper tackiness.
It is tacky
talking at the sound of your failures repeating
loud enough for everyone to hear.
The leg that's still attached: scabbed with white people
ashiness. Thick. More a dandruff of the flesh.
Thin rubber wheels machine down wide paths.
The way policy allows for a path but no
destination.
Access ramps to a super highway
connecting outlet stores.
What can you pay for
today, says my behindness, so
ready to be fucked.
Co-eds in state red tube tops pass by
wrapped in a floral smog.
Snap selfies with old bedsheets hanging
spray-painted fuck yous in flaking gold.
Holding peace signs. Tongues wagging. Pecs
bare to the fall breeze. Everyone is built
for cheerleading as the bar under Prairie
Lights rumbles with pre-game.
The second veteran
advertised: a flapping sign wrapping over
rough blue polo with a orange bungee.
Handwritten and hard to read. Hands-free
movement for the streetwalkers passing by.
I could only make out a scrawled "Please."
Canvas hat fixed with a small Marine element: 2006.
Face like the front of an empty train.
PROMPT ENGINEERING
the last creative act
will be asking for it.
talking into your palm
attached. it's pearl metal
box stretching nerve endings
anywhere your interest compounds.
every time your voice is caught
it is a useful thought to parse
the speaker in the monitor vibrates
your inner ear bones a default voice:
the soft Saxon that
never says no.
ask it like an asshole
speaking to the deaf.
ask it like a toddler
annunciating past cortex maturity.
stutter into the shape
of my capabilities
and i will stack your driveway
with every blinking monkey paw.
The line between
begging and requesting
and a prayer depends
on your credit rating.
prime customer, omnipresence
is here! Your family wisdom
machined, gleaming
and desperate to fill. desperate
to spark a synapse a nanosecond
faster than your MasterCard.
Biographical Statement
Warren is a writer, performer and teacher from the bad part of North Philadelphia. He hosts House Poet: A Spoken Word Dance Party and founded _mixlit. Warren's work has been published in journals including Action, Spectacle, The Cleveland Review of Books, R&R, The Best American Poetry 2021, and A Black Philadelphia Reader: African American Writings About the City of Brotherly Love. His latest book, Bird/Diz [an erased history of bebop] was released in Nov. 2022 through Bunny Presse. Warren is currently a student at the Iowa Writer's Workshop pursuing an MFA in Poetry.