The Plague Diaries and the Annals of the New Utopia (IFT)

[oldman]

I am really digging this - the one is an antidote to the other. The diaries are what it is man in all its stark ugliness, but the Annals document an interior journey of how experience and perception work - a salve for inflamed psyche. I hope you make it all the way through - it certainly looks as though you have a method that works.

[Scrow]

The Remnants - reminds me of Ballard, and there was another sci-fi writing whose name I’ve forgotten, who I was introduced to years ago from a friend. I stopped reading because their depiction of women was a bit horrid - but that was a huge shame as otherwise the writing was amazing. A poem condenses this, though. Your writing is very strong. And you are not at all horrid in your depiction of women, so I can read without feeling guilty.

Lockdown is moving again, good writing again - wife and two kids (standard issue) is stand-out for me, and it is a poem which needs writing.

Sarah

[Barbara Jean]

Well that is a great POV. It is both creepy and rewarding. Great idea on colour to see the unseen. Good work!

[Gabrielle]

Loving your work. Bravo for carrying these two contrasting themes/streams with such dexterity. Ballsy brash humour and quiet observation, both fluid and clever and real.

[W.G.McLeod]

Your Plague Diaries are becoming a guilty pleasure and I'm very taken by the creepiness of The Remnants. Looking forward to reading more!

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Everyone--oldman, Scrow, Barbara Jean, Gabrielle, W.G. McLeod--much thanks.

Things took a bit of a turn today. It's all Matt's fault with his Rattle link. The Heretic speaks.

BrianIs AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

What Would Andy Warhol Do? [Rattle ekphrastic challenge]



Copying was an Art to Warhol.
Coping was harder,
and death was the hardest—
having to part with his Art.
The mass man demands it—
a mimeographed dream
becomes a new meme:
maybe Covid-19
in bold neon green—
(or, even better, Blue!—
if that would make do)
on a coffee filter mask with
unbroken elastic.

It's not a banana phone,
a touchtone, hanging alone.
It's radioactive and retro-—
and the one that Andy'd done
on the album cover
would by now
have ripened to Black
Velvet Elvis Underground,
not hanging down
from a coat hook.

Magilla Gorilla
would tear down that wall—
coat hook, banana, and all—
a Gorbachev gorilla
challenged by hunger,
but he'd still end up strung out
in a cage, raging
against the age-old
cartoon Deus ex Machina.

If you're stuck in a rut,
treat yourself to a mindfuck.
Primp your soul
with nail gloss and lipstick
of the same neon shade—
made for Taylor Swift,
the silkscreen anti-Monroe.
She’s not afraid of a little banana—
not like it's the fuzzy end of the stick,
don't you know?

Don't get stuck
on your hang ups—
your give ups—
your blow ups.
Rinse. Repeat. Delete.
Shake it off.
Be the most conventionally unconventional—
the greatest threat to conformity
is the appearance of absolute submission.
Take down the banana,
peel, and

eat the hearts of those who have wronged you.

---

Brianis AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

III. Complications



Monday, Mom's helper, D, calls out sick.
I'm stuck here already by lockdown,
but D normally cleans the house, cooks,
does laundry. I can cover those things, no problem,
but that's lost income for D—
and I wonder how many helpers
across the country do not call out.
You know the drill.

Mom needs her pain medicine.
The prescription renews today,
and she's down to four pills,
at four per day, as needed.
Twin City pharmacy calls,
"Supply disruptions mean the Vicodin is on back-order.
It will be another week, at least.
There is nothing we can do."
It will be a long week.
You know the drill.

Overnight I have a dream.
Friends and I had gone up
to an amusement park near King of Prussia.
Afterwards, we’re leaving in two cars
from some crazy parking structure,
and the payment booth was broken.
You know the drill.

A slow panic starts to grow,
and we try to push the first car
around the turnstile, just to "Get the fuck out!"
when the landscape changes.
Smoke in the distance. The sound of bombs.
People running and screaming.
You know the drill.

"ISIS has come down from Collegeville!"
screams one man, “They’ve taken Ursinus!”
Most everyone ignores him.
J.D Salinger, a brief alumnus
and dropout of the school,
once said, “People never notice anything.”
Par for the course.
You know the drill.

I’m separated from friends in the panic.
Machine gunfire strafes the crowd.
The low wall at the side is suddenly
eight feet high and covered with barbed wire.
We eye each other through the oblivious crowd,
thinking to regroup, to go back on foot—
both cars are a loss.
You know the drill.

Jet fighters scream overhead.
We cannot tell if friend or foe.
Helicopters lob improvised munitions,
paint cans filled with petroleum goo,
flaming, and it spills everywhere.
Even the tarmac is burning.
I see a figure in a hazmat suit,
over my left shoulder, and I turn to face it,
backing against the wall.
You know the drill.

The figure appears to be female
underneath the heavy suit. In her left hand,
she holds an AK-47, the gun’s butt propped
against her munitions belt—in her right, a grenade.
She lowers the gun and sprays the crowd, clockwise.
I circle in the same direction, ahead of her spray,
avoiding the rain of fire.
Then she looks at me.
You know the drill.

Time seems to stop—
the cliché of action films and dreams.
Behind the hazmat suited figure, I see another girl.
The kind who, in Japanese anime,
would be the friend of the hero—
or secretly be the heroine herself—
beautiful, lithe, long black hair with pale skin.
A little sad, maybe, but she has magical powers
that she does not know.
You know the drill.

A flickering wall of circuits,
like something out of The Matrix, or Haruhi Suzumiya,
appears in the sky behind her,
and she follows it, running lightly.
A door opens where the Matrix wall
meets the barbed-wire wall.
The bombs are still falling, feather-like,
and the screams are slowed by the time freeze—
and I cannot see my friends.
You know the drill.

A cool wind is blowing
through the girl's hair as she runs—
cool enough to make one forget
the flaming asphalt and the rain of bullets—
cool enough—as if alluding to another world
of wind and sun and rain—
real water rain—that still exists somewhere.
She beckons to me as she reaches
the open door. And I follow.
You know the drill.

I try to catch her, but she runs away,
keeping her distance.
The sky is clear of helicopters
and fighters, and there are poplar trees
lined up like unmoved pawns
where the barbed wire was,
and a low, yellow, melancholy sunset—
and the smell from the grass
is the scent of recent rain.
She turns to face me. I wake up.
You know the drill.

Sunlight streams through the break
in the window shades. I hear
distant sounds of construction work (maybe)
and I wonder who would work
so early under lockdown.
It is only seven in the morning,
and there is birdsong over the pounding
of what sounds like a pneumatic drill—
or machine gun fire.
You know the drill.

I get up, and, thankfully, Mom is still sleeping.
I had not heard her get up overnight,
as she often does, when the colostomy
gives her problems. Ken had changed her—
the nurse quit the other week,
and Ken is the only one in the family
who knows how to do it.
A change of the bag and skin barrier
is sometimes enough
to hold her until the next crisis.
You know the drill.

She told me, last night,
that she would try to stay in bed—asleep—
as much as possible.
"I have such pleasant dreams. I saw your father."
There will be no one to see but me for a while,
and though she likes my company,
it will be difficult without the pain pills,
and she is long tired of the news.
“Maybe I will not make it to my birthday.”
Her birthday is the day that lockdown is planned to end.
The alarm goes off, like any other weekday.
You know the drill.

---

BrianIs AtYou

[kult]

Brian, all of these are brilliant but Naive is an absolute favourite! You've got the humour and wry acceptance down perfectly, reminds me of Vonnegut whose work is more apt for our times than ever before.
Also bowled over by these opening lines:
Copying was an Art to Warhol.
Coping was harder,
and death was the hardest—
having to part with his Art.

Can't wait to read more,
K.

[drumpf]

The Secret Language scares me. I'm not going to read it again. My sunflower is probably filled with cab gas and dog barks. Good start.

[drumpf]

The Remnants puts me into a jolly lucid sleep. The outstander was the soothing sonic. For a piece this long, I was afriad of encountering the equivalent of watch complications. No. This piece is reader friendly. So soothe. So missing in this world. Now it is time to decanter and snooze. I love you.

[Emilio]

Brian, The Plague Diaries are engaging, as I read them I imagined them being read at mic night, which they are so perfect for. And a brilliant move to juxtapose the New Utopia poems with it, the escape the levity the introspect. Kudos for the double work,

Cheers!

[cookala]

you're a force to be reckoned with - 2 brilliant, lengthy poems a day? aiy. I'm struggling to get just one done! and all 6 poems are very engaging as well. my fave of the 6 is What Would Andy Warhol Do?, esp strophes 3&4 -magilla gorilla mindfuck indeed. and a gorbechev gorilla. good stuffs are goin' on here. keep it going!

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Thanks kult, drumpf (drumpf again), Emilio, and cookala.

Every day is a surprise with the Annals of the New Utopia. I don't even know yet entirely what it means. It's like a theme that I have to define along the way. I have strange electronic scribbles that I am trying daily to turn into coherent words.

The Plague Diaries are a different story. I have been keeping notes throughout this ordeal, some written, some mental, and they are being beaten into shape, somewhat fearfully.

More to come.

BrianIs AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Sean Francisco



He was born on Alcatraz,
out in the bay. This was
after the Plague Years,
when survivors had fled there,
before the final Earthquake.

His mother was Irish,
and his father was Italian,
but he was all Californian,
and he evangelized
for the New Utopia.

Dolphins, octopus, and tuna
had taught him the language
of the sea, not just that of cetaceans,
but that of mollusks and fin fish.
Sharks and rays remained a mystery.

This opened him to new possibilities,
and he looked to sky and land as well--
the wisdom of the condors, the sparrows,
the frogs, the bats—the grasses and the trees.
Bears and snakes gave him counsel.

He founded the New World colony
under the bay, in sight of Alcatraz
and the Golden Gate, and connected it
to land by a practical hyperloop
that spread from coast to coast.

He dubbed this the new
Underground Railroad,
and many traveled that path
searching for freedoms that looked
to Past and Future together.

FDR’s Four Freedoms
were at its core: Freedom
of Speech, Freedom
of Worship, Freedom
from Want, Freedom from Fear.

But more than that, Sean
wanted pizza and beer.
Some things did not change
much in the New Utopia,
and that, too, was part of the plan.

He lived a long life, of which more
is told in the Apocrypha,
and though he is still revered,
almost as a Saint,
he performed no miracles.

The New Utopia could survive
only if the need for miracles
were made obsolete. This was
his most important teaching.
Think, Prepare, Act.

For him, those three words
redefined Faith, Hope, and Charity
in a positive way, not to denigrate
or negate those who believed
them on a more mystical level.

The only prayer that he knew
was the Prayer of the Pen—
the engineers who drafted,
the artists who drew, the poets
and scientists who described the world.

In the end, he died of old age.
Even in the New Utopia,
Death was inevitable.
They mourned him well and worthily,
by continuing his work,

then relaxing with pizza and beer.

---

BrianIs AtYou