Web of Trust

They make trust with the people of the web, a makeshift arrangement that sets loose an army of powerful crystal giants. Like peasants born in El Salvador they dream of escape, and ultimately will do anything, even flee to the Evil Empire, rather than stay in their own ravaged country.
"We’d up and fly if we had wings for flying, can’t you see these tears were crying, can’t there be some happiness for me…"
Not in the Empire of the gods of sloth and gluttony, not under the dominion of the army of slow cold death. The rhythm will sweep you up, send you under a carpet to live in the eternal night. Then you might make your way through subterranean tunnels, an invisible something with tendrils, with a mouth, living beneath the lake at the heart of the mountains. Taking the wrong passageway, tromping down the wrong lane, dodging into unfortunate alleys where fear makes you her lover and grips you so tight with want that it suffocates your best impulse. Those tendrils stretched out in search of heat, of one lost fragment of warmth and light to steal away. The feathers weight is a fairy tale ending. Here we all end leaded, with feet submerged in tubs of dried cement pulling us down, down, into the murky waters. Sucking the liquid into our lungs, grasping for life, we are inviting death instead.
In this bleak end we trust, we count on it. And it makes us strong. It makes us kind. Hope is like a drug; abused, taken in excess, it leads to brain death. The misery is not in endlessly repeating the same toil, the same guest, the same day for eternity. The misery evolves from the hope that it could be otherwise. Accepting our lot, keeping to the trust that we know what anguish lies ahead. We merrily greet it, teeth bared in a grimace/smile. Trust guns. Trust regime. Trust weakness. Above all trust work, toil and work.
The big black Woman’s deep gaze earned my trust. I looked into the depth of her and let her look back into the depth of me. She saw something which she did not like, but I let her see it and I was unashamed. Changing shape is how I fuel this economy. I love the planet. I trust that Greenland will melt away and the three feet of water gained globally will make me a mermaid. If only we could sustain global warming. The creators of the Hummer knew that I would get a kick out of joining king Triton at the bottom of the sea, and goodbye California. The lost state of California. And down there in the briny blue I’ll swim with the polar bears that sunk with Greenland.
It could have been a musician, a painter, an engineer, a cement balloon. It could have been Frankie.
I love nature. I love watching everything decay and turn to shit all around me, I love watching myself and others grow wrinkly and wobbly, I love watching the silent hunter creep up on us all with her scythe in hand. But until she catches me, I’ll delight in the chamber pot. It’s not me. It’s you. Death is imminent enough, without us going around trying to hurry it. It’s not an option. We can’t hope our way out of it. At least not without microphones.
With a dime bag of hope, two turntables and a microphone, perhaps we could sneak over old man times wall. We’ll pick the fruit from his trees and swim in his swimming pool (I might find California at the bottom, which would be cool because I could grab some of that shit I lost when it sank) while he’s out working. He’s got a nice yard, built before it became popular to have everything covered in white quartz rock. There’s real grass growing there. Yeah, you know what I mean. The kind cows like to eat. Then they crap it back out and someone comes along and puts it in a bag and sells it to someone else in the suburbs so they can spread it over their yard and grow more GRASS!
Or at least they used to before the irrational fear that cows were causing global warming sprouted up. After that the government rationed out all of the available white quartz rock available. It became illegal to grow grass, sell grass, or even have grass in your possession. You could even get into trouble for holding someone else’s grass for them. The underground cult of the Golden Cow rose in popularity with the rebellious younger generation, spreading its pale roots far and wide.
Anyway, it’s a nice yard. His pet dog, Unknowable, lays in the shade of the trees where he tries to piece together a strawberry shortcake puzzle somebody bought for him at the 99cent store. The trouble, you see, lays in that the puzzle is so poorly manufactured that even the wrong pieces fit together sometimes. All he really has to go on is the picture. The best part about Unknowable is that he never barks when strangers hop over the old man’s wall. Turns out that he’s been on strike for a while now and refuses to resume his usual guard dog duties until Time gives him a raise. He’s totally cool with whoever creeps back there, just so long as nobody tries to take away his puzzle.
"Don’t Step on the Grass" signs are planted all over the yard. Unknowable once hunted for a promise, and it eluded him, so now anybody can break laws written on gator board signs and embrace the Proud Way. Someday. Hands at the ready, ashes in the mouth, we run barefoot through the forests of the future, lay gasping in the sudden present, die trembling in the past. The rulers of the world get together and corner peasants and slap them around demanding gold but get only wooden buttons to break their teeth on. Shit happens, its no secret.
When the great grand daddy of all floods came, it wiped clean all traces of peasant life, because food stamps couldn’t pay for a ticket to higher ground. The keepers of the Empire watched from the mountain tops, picking their teeth with the branch of an olive tree.