My prison pen pal “Conway” has made good use of his time to write poetry while he waits for a hearing on his early release petition. Here, he shares a brief intense lyric that he wrote inside a card with his original artwork, inspired by Salvador Dali’s melting clock faces in the painting “Persistence of Memory”. I was struck by the apocalyptic closing image of missiles lined up and waiting. “The day of perpetual consumption” is a uniquely modern American twist on the Last Judgment — the fire that never ceases to consume us, who never cease to consume the world.
Indignance of Time
Dancing on an escalator
any Blackjack can move
as verse quakes off the sound
rattling around
This town this shaft going nowhere.
Some shop keep roars.
From shag deep floors
But no one keys the door.
Once done, no’one can come
back out of this inner sanctum
this Holy glass of need.
We crave to tour the billboard lit night.
Abundant commerce
misled souvenir missiles of clay;
Lined up to wake the day
of perpetual consumption…