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 | UE prose.
entry by aurelie
11/23/2008 8:23 PM
| I
roofwalking/the electric garden.
the roofs of uptown buildings
(the ones not yet built)
are littered with antennae, wires, twisted flowers,
broken glass.
we keep low to the cool, damp floor (if roofs have floors)
because, yes, we're visible from the ground
and criminal trespassing charges
aren't the proudest of achievements.
on hands and knees, fingers sliding on the gleaming cold
water soaking through the knees of our jeans.
we crawl through a jungle
of metallic flora, aerials, bolts and washers.
around us, and outward,
the distant glow and hum of the city
the nightlife throbs, drones in our ears.
it comes in waves;
a pounding, far-off music in the air
made unearthly by the distance.
the lights in the sky scrapers go out one by one.
to a song with indistinguishable words,
the song of owls and nightcrawlers,
and the backing of a downtown rap show
devoid of lyrics, nothing but pulsing synths
and pounding beat.
II
remnants/reminders.
When buildings are still occupied,
We have no idea how many people go in and out of them.
But once they’ve been abandoned,
It’s easy to tell.
It’s simply an assessment, tallying up the destruction.
How many windows have been smashed out, leaving jagged dusty holes like blind eyes in a crumbling, vine-covered face?
How many walls are adorned with graffiti; words and images, profound and mundane; not just in spray paint but in pencils, markers, blades and assorted bodily fluids?
How many footprints are left in the dust, how many finger marks on the doorknobs, how many lost items are there, and how many are missing?
In a sunlit room, bottles of prescription pills are lined up neatly, backlit orange and glowing in the dust. The names on the labels are all unfamiliar.
In another room, an elementary school portrait lies adjacent to a stained playboy calendar.
Dust motes filter in streams through cracked windows.
The larger rooms have a cathedral-like quality in the day
almost holy.
A flutter of wings; a pigeon has wandered in from the upper stories and become trapped. It sails back and forth, trying to find an opening, a way out of the cluttered gloom.
Outside, the vines wrap their twisted tendrils over the rust and crawl in lines up the cracked walls.
III
Self Defense.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling that you get
when you crawl on hands and knees through broken glass and heroin needles
into a vast unknown, dank-smelling blackness
Armed only with a camera and a three-inch switchblade.
I realize that I am absurdly over confident in my ability to fight off
rabid dogs,
homeless people,
and PCP fiends.
The knife is more of a symbol of safety
Than an actual weapon, I think.
IV
Fences
I aim to perfect the art
Of hopping fences.
This is made known to the public
By the 1-800-FENCES sign hanging in my room.
I stole it from a construction site
because I was upset that they cut off the roof access.
Besides barbed wire, and razor wire,
There’s a certain kind of fence that is angled
For a specific purpose:
Either to keep something in, or to keep something out.
What I find intriguing
Is that in the cemetery downtown
The fence is made
For keeping things IN.
V
Defunct.
My father grew up on the outskirts of Detroit,
and even lived in the city at one point
Yet, he still fails to see why I find it beautiful.
This city of crumbling bridges,
Burnt out shells of houses,
Towering sky-scrapers of shattered glass
And boarded windows.
My father used to be one of the people who boarded up those windows.
He says he was contracted by the mafia.
Last time we drove through downtown Detroit,
he refused to let me enter even partway into the Michigan Central Station,
The mecca of abandoned Detroit.
I was reduced to taking photographs of the exterior.
17 stories; a monolith of cracked windows and graffiti from years past.
There are said to be dozens of people living in the place.
The downtown crazies seemed to gravitate to it,
congregating around it
wild-eyed and gesticulating,
wandering in circles in the tall grass.
VI
junkyard/end at the start.
this started with the junkyard.
yes, the one in Davis Lake.
a wonderland of smashed-up cars to stand on as the sun sets.
broken signs,
cds scratched beyond repair,
umbrellas,
beer bottles,
windshields spider-webbed with cracks that gleam in the light.
we dragged car seats from their holdings to serve as chairs.
in the winter, when the trees were skeletons,
and the blackbirds made V's
across the cold clear blue
and we were bundled up appropriately.
in tennis shoes, we'd emerge from the woods
and crunch across the open sea
made up of tiny fragments of broken glass
the ground gleamed like fire in the sun.
biting our chapped lips in the cold,
we wondered how many people died in those cars,
caught in the cage of twisted metal.
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