Little Boxes.

Little boxes along the sidewalk

their captives: our knick-knacks,

our clothes & shoes, our Sunglasses Hut &

Nordstrom’s Rack, our furniture,

utensils, lightboxes: HD or plasma.

 

Our digital cash

that machines read off plastic cards.

& if you swipe that card

in one of the boxes downtown

THEN you're worthy enough to take your

spaghetti straps & Nike Shox,

cast-iron cooking ware & iPad tablet,

confidently, as though it all belongs to you.

 

It does not.

Why would it?

Did you produce the cotton?

Did you photosynthesize it through the sun's energy as plants do?

Did you assemble it?

Under harsh fluorescent lights? In mundane repetitions?

No breaks? No overtime? On wages near impossible to survive on?

Did you transport it?

Halfway around the planet? By truck & boat? Plane, then truck?

Burn the fuel & choke us all.

Don't front,

you didn't.

& even if you had, that object,

that chotsky, has its own sovereign will:

to fit perfectly or chafe your skin,

to dance in the wind or "be lost."

"Get lost." F**k the passive voice,

You didn't lose your s**t.

It escaped. Fairies stole it.

All property is theft.

 

 

Little boxes along the sidewalk;

their protectors: legitimized thugs,

fat security guards, crumbs in beards,

the paramilitary police force.

 

& if you choose to challenge these downtown boxes

& the system they represent, impose, encode;

& if you speak out with an anarchist,

anti-capitalist, anti-civ sentiment
& if you accumulate not following the rules,

or agglomerate without cash;

& if you’re read as a threat based on your skin tone;

& if you show out for May Day

with banners & chants that call all this out,

or with the intent to shatter the glass

(liberate stolen goods on stolen land),

or simply with your eyes & a smile on the sidewalk,

 

the thugs will beat you:

bicycle bars jabbing chests,

batons cracking ribs,

combat boots ramming precious vessels of human consciousness.

Flashbombs launched at your friends,

under baby carriages,

sparkle like fireworks,

shrapnel shooting, striking, stinging, singing

"God bless America."

They will grab you, push you down,

kneel into you, chain your wrists;

you are kidnapped.

 

The boxes that collude the most capital

into the accounts of the thugs get the most protection.

Police lines are tighter at Macy's than Forever 21.

Which one's more affordable?

Which one's more stingy?

Which is wealthier?

 

 

Little boxes along the sidewalk;

in between combustion pulses traffic,

cages of metal on wheels pour poisonous

music, news reports of a mercury culture

into the minds of their captive drivers.

 

On foot we play by their rules:

cross when lights tell us to,

or risk fines for J-walking.

Taking to the streets is an act of liberation

that harks back to the time when

these boxes never existed. Trees grew in place,

we were free to walk wherever, however, naked.

No one owns this land; not the cars

not the cops, not the boxes, nor their CEO's.

 

Still the we are dispersed,

divided, brutalized, terrorized.

We don't have enough digital cash

to afford the means to fight back

with equal force.

We are corralled like cattle,

vessels of human consciousness prodded.

 

I was so worked up that I wanted to leave.

Hold myself as I cry asleep in my own bed.

Box it all out of my mind in my room.

I stood on the sidewalk as the mob escaped to the right.

The police mounted on bike filed past me.

I took a weak step back so the piggy cyclers to use the ramp.

Still 3 officers approach me, bikes lengthwise:

a police line just for me.

The officer demands, "Move."

"No!"                            I yell,            "NO!

                      This is a public sidewalk."

                                    "Move."        

                      "No."

& they push me.

They push me.             They tackle me down.

This is how it happens,          separated from the hoard,

this is how I'm kidnapped.

 

 

A little box just for me;

wrists choked in metal behind my back.

I don't know how long I'll be here,

where I go next,

what they say about me on the forms they scribble.

Fill in the boxes (male or female).

Their relics are arbitrary, but legitimized

to be used as weapons against me.

I am powerless in this cell;

I smear my bloody blackened wounds along the wall,

I read the area codes scraped on the door

So I know others have been here before.

I sing as obnoxiously as possible.

 

This cage; the 5-inch ribbon of window

stretches along the free(dom) way.

If a brick were to shatter this glass

I still couldn't escape.

 

The privileged speed past my box

in their little metal boxes,

between the boxes on the sidewalk,

to the little boxes that they “live” in