how much longer can I stand on this beach
how much longer can I write through the sand on this beach
how much longer can I watch them bury my friends on this beach
they bury the dogs on the beach
they buy the bones on the beach
they bury the bodies the city does not want to absorb and when the bodies are asked to be re-absorbed their prayers fall
they fall and they fall and there is nowhere for them to land so they fall and as the prayers fall there are images projected in the outline of the horizon
the authoritative bodies are projecting the final prayers of the falling bodies from the high rises on the coast of lake michigan
they project the images of the bodies falling out of the high rises the images of the children watching their parents falling out of them the images of the Medicare patients falling out of them
i am going to retire in 5 years says the overseer of the Medicare patients who are falling out of the building
he needs incentives to stab them more thoroughly in the heart (performance-based funding)
he needs state and national policies to facilitate the more efficient stabbing of the Medicare patients in the heart
there is no need to notify the family of the falling bodies
the authoritative bodies and the police have systems in place so that the families of the falling bodies will never be surprised
on lake michigan they watch they the bodies of their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers falling
can you find an affordable price point asks the overseer of Medicare
if you can’t find an affordable price point the problem is you might fall out of a tree you might find yourself dangling from a pole you might find yourself buried in the sand the emperor of privatization might personally come to nibble on your bones he might personally lick up your skin or perhaps he will send an assistant
the prison camp is called Slash and Burn and it is not figurative it is a place where the bodies are slashed and burned
they splash the bodies with acid they beat them in the proper places they kick them in the ribs the face the head they cash in on the prisoners when their body parts appreciate over time
the prison guards make camp fires
they film the prisoners sitting around the camp fires roasting hot dogs and marshmallows
they force the prisoners to sing songs
the prisoners sing thank you thank you for life thank you for life
they sing about the purple mountains and they sing about things that gleam in the night
the mist is clearing over lake michigan and as the mist clears we see the first boatmen coming in from the horizon
the tug boats are here and they are moving towards the beach
they have messages to give to the prisoners but they will not make it past the prison ships off the coast of lake michigan
there are too many bodies crammed into the prison ships
there are too many young bodies who had nowhere to go once their schools were privatized in the rotten carcass economy
they are forced to have a good time and from where we stand on the beach we can hear the music on the ship
we can hear the prisoners who are forced to sing and be happy
nasty nasty boys don’t mean a thing
doo-doo-do-do-doo-doo-doo-do
nastyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy boys
don’t mean a thing
all you nasty boys don’t mean a thing to me
and the bodies on the ship dance
they are forced to be happy and they are filmed as they dancing so that the international observers will think they are loved
and the authoritative bodies and the police officers say to the dancing bodies on the ship
show the world you love each other
and the prisoners are filmed trying to love each other
and we watch them from our seats on the beach
we watch their love being projected onto the buildings on the coast of lake michigan
and they beat us and they pay us and they love us
Lake Michigan, Scene 9
The brown, the beige, the white bodies are zigzagging through the streets carrying televisions
They carry bats
They carry video cameras
They carry shoes
The bodies are piling up on the sidewalk in front of a building with steel bars in its windows
Behind the bars a Mexican or Central American man is screaming: let me out let me out
Outside the bars, above him and to the right, a shovel is being jammed through a window
Then there are sirens and the bodies scatter as the police cars park
The police officers wear white helmets and they walk confidently towards the scene of destruction
There are shards of glass on the sun-soaked sidewalk
The shadows of the structures form a long ladder on the ground
The camera follows the police towards the building being looted
The men scamper down the stairs
Their shirts are off and they jump over fences
Get out of here get out, the police officer says to a black man in a green t-shirt
The police officer looks into the broken building
He holds a club
He turns towards the street
He has a mustache and sunglasses and he is balding (no hat, no helmet)
He turns back towards the building and looks inside of it
Come out of there, he yells, come out of there motherfucker
The camera shifts to a white kid also with his shirt off
His light blue jeans sit right below his waist, just low enough to reveal the elastic of his boxers
He stops and looks back at the site of the resistance
He holds his hands up in the air and whoops with satisfaction then he takes off running
Here is the face of the police officer who cannot catch him
The cop spins back towards the broken buildings
There are two other officers walking in his direction, scouting the scene for more bodies
The wood from the broken building
The raw bones of the broken building
The police officers huddle for a moment
Let’s go, move it back one yells
Here is a bus
Here is smoke over a white van, over streetlights, over electrical wires
The cars drive into monstrous blobs of charcoal-colored smoke in front of the high rises on the beach
The mass of smoke moves from left to right and it looks like the cars will drive into it as if it were a tunnel
The cars slow down as they approach the incredible cloud of smoke
Where are the cars going, how will they drive through the smoke
The mass of smoke stops them and the camera shifts to a different scene
Here is a man in a blue shirt running down the street with a large cardboard box on his shoulder
We are four minutes into the riot and we see the orange flames in the background
In the foreground the fire swirls wildly
An old green pickup truck pulls out of a parking lot that appears to be connected to a building on fire
The truck takes a left and gets stuck behind an eggplant-colored van
There are more men running with cardboard boxes on their shoulders
We are now moving down the highway
The streetcars, the fire trucks, the alarms
A man on the second floor of a shop throws a cardboard box out the window
The scene shifts and in the foreground the traffic moves normally
But just a street behind the traffic there is the fire, a beast consuming the city
There is a performance of walking past the fire and pretending it is normal
A swagger in the movement of the young men with loose white t-shirts
The scene shifts
The bodies scatter again and we watch the firefighters spray the flames
This is not the type of fire that will die with any rapidity but the firefighter in focus appears to be calm as he sprays the building, waving the hose around so as to hit different segments of flame
The scene shifts to a conversation between a white female police officer and a black man who appears to be in his mid-40s
The police officer is holding a rifle in her left hand
She is wearing a blue helmet and a braided ponytail falls out of it
The camera is behind her
We do not see her face
,
They are in a parking lot
The golden arches of McDonalds can be seen in the background
The police officer is talking to this man who is wearing a straw hat and bright blue pants
He is holding a small camera and is arguing with the police officer who has apparently told him that he cannot go past because he does not have a {media}pass
The man questions her, he probes, he’s astounded
He says: and that guy taking pictures with his cell phone—he’s got a pass?
Yes he’s got a pass, the police officer says, holding her rifle up in the air
The long rifle stands parallel to the man she is arguing with
His elbow touches the side of his chest
His palms face up in a gesture that reminds me of one of those Caravaggio paintings of the Apostles asking a question of Christ
He’s got a pass?
Dude over there with a cell phone and he’s got a pass
Sir, the man with the straw hat says, addressing who I thought was a female police officer
But as the camera approaches I now see that the police officer I thought was a woman is actually a man
There is no ponytail (perhaps all I saw was a shadow)
The parking lot they are standing in is drenched and filled with debris
There are just a few cars parked and in the background there are some single-story storefronts
The police officer and the man are debating, walking stage left
The man with the straw hat speaks beyond the police officer and to the guy taking pictures with his cell phone who cannot be seen on screen
Excuse me, yells the guy with the straw hat, do you have a pass
The police officer and the man with the straw hat are walking slowly in the direction of more parked cars
Another police officer is standing, arms folded near the entrance to the lot
Only media sir, he says to the man with the straw hat
And the man with the straw hat says, I’m media too
The scene shifts to a long shot along a graffitied wall and then back to the raging charcoal-colored flames swirling over and through the buildings
The firefighter calmly waves his hose at the flaming beast
A car drives by and on its radio we hear a clip of a call-in program with a storekeeper complaining about how the police did not intervene on his behalf when the so-called rioters destroyed his business
In the background the flames have destroyed a shoe store
The brand names of the shoes on signs are withering away in flames
There is now incredible footage of a firefighter sitting on the pavement with a hose between his legs aiming at flames in a building 30 or 40 feet away from him
Flames burst out of the building as glass explodes from the windows
Daniel Borzutzky is the author of The Performance of Becoming Human, winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry. His other books and chapbooks include In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy (2015), Bedtime Stories for the End of the World! (2015), Data Bodies (2013), The Book of Interfering Bodies (2011), and The Ecstasy of Capitulation (2007). He has translated Galo Ghilgliotto’s Valdivia (2016); Raúl Zurita’s The Country of Planks (2015) and Song for his Disappeared Love (2010); and Jaime Luis Huenún’s Port Trakl (2008). His work has been supported by the Illinois Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pen/Heim Translation Fund. He lives in Chicago.
