Olympic Drive
By Kyle Dargan
Los Angeles
Across from the gorgeous dog park,
men dream against poodle-pissed trees —
their pillows made from breath captured
in milk cartons. Only arid, temperate
climate offers respite. Let us suppose
they have tales, here in this city
where filmed stories turn a mint.
All around, one wide screen — the dark hills
due north pixel-pocked with villa lights.
Below, streets hemmed with haggard
brown men — jack-in-the-box bodies
ever unfolding. Who is pitching
this script? Title: “The Child of 1968.”
Voiceover: After the Integration Apocalypse,
one man must find his way in a land
where the sole survivors who look or speak
like him are those rendered disturbed
and indigent. Assume the Motion Picture
Association eager to levy a “Rated R,”
then remember that those who judge
violence never shared your definition
of savagery. A culling is all your eyes
decipher — your herd thinned. No urban
wildlife anywhere to be found,
yet hunger for a hunt remains.
Tagline: A hero must choose —
between starving or bartering one’s own
skin. Plot: Amidst the solar famine, bio-
electric studies revealed melanin’s subtle
charge — the brown population gone
mad from being sapped like CopperTops.
Imagine The Matrix without the extra-
terrestrial machines. Imagine that among us
there have lived men churning statistics,
devising a human harvest, a brutal method
to subsist off fellow men and leave their bones
for the gnawing of next century’s mutts.
Source: Poetry (February 2016)