Los Angeles Supermarket

In the west,
The Agora perched up wide,
at the crossing of industry and desire.
The ugly search of faces,
pulling strange bodies,
dragging around store grounds,
like mounds of dead tentacled madness.
The slime of their stupor trailing haggard flesh,
a mucus that hardens in the heat.
Their genius pounded by decades of industry.
Only the cold smoke of a burnt matchstick remains,
in this shell of the self-loathing daily.
The human body survives the squandering of the mind,
knotting itself together with tenuous sinew.
Have they nothing for the young?
Occasional wisdom seeps out softly,
between the perennial screech.

The Agora,
surrounded by endless labyrinth of machines.
A vessel begins to loosen,
swift plummet through the labyrinth.
The alarmed woman clawing for a clutch,
can't stop it.
The vessel gains.
speed, speed, speed.
"That one's going fast," I say.
It pounds the machine's veneer with supreme force.
"I think you ought to retrieve it,"
says the alarmed woman.
Burrowing through the radiation,
I pull the vessel from the wreckage,
though I don't go unscathed.
The wreckage was no one's fault,
I untether myself from the guilt.
These souls need saving!
Souls of cold smoke in the dragging shells.
Yet I'm among these souls,
not ready to admit I have the equipment.
I leave them be for now,
heading on through crumbling tar labyrinth.
I hand off the goods,
in exchange for another meal,
another day of sick air.
The bodies in the chambers,
sometimes more distorted.
Sometimes though,
the bodies light up the day,
more than the sun ever could.
The beautifully poised and smiling goddesses of the land,
breathe love into your soul.
The thin cotton clinging to their moist skin.
The doors close.