Domain Of The Damned And Monsters Of Abstraction

Monsters of Abstraction
(a poem about homeless veterans shelters)
by Jolie Blond
03/18/05

The penal colony genius loci
of this abandoned,
then non-profit corporation retrofitted,
engineers dorm cum
bad boy wildlife refuge,
is a pervading spirit
of the gestalt of submission.

You take a free man off the street,
fine him 40 hours community service
for the crime of not working,
slap some in-and-out curfews on him
(can't be in bed all day,
can't be out of it all night),
and make him stand in line for everything,
even to blow his nose,
and if you can get him
to submit to all this control crap
after he's been free for months or years
---to eat out of your trash can,
shit on your doorstep
or sleep under your car---
if you can break such a
feral and socially careless man,
and charge him rent for the experience,
then you have served the proletariat
and re manufactured for them
a docile employee;
a dead-eyed
interchangeable
cog
in your wheel of commerce.

You have manufactured
a security guard.

The dead-eyed, submitting
ex-monsters of abstraction
are moved upstairs
to 'General Population'
where they can hide
in shame
their once street-crazed swashbuckling selves
from incoming brothers-in-arms;
current monsters of abstraction,
men who are still mostly street,
their straight razor freedoms
still fresh in their minds,
men who would flee
from the gestalt of submission
they might see
feel or taste
in the dead-eyed ones.

Tags: domain, the damned, poem, poetry, poet, monsters, abstraction, Jolie Blond, homeless veterans shelter, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, homelessness, U.S. Vets, Westside, penal colony, U.S. military veterans, genus loci, bad boy wildlife refuge, nonprofit corporation, Project Cloudburst, gestalt of submission, community service, crime of homelessness, vagrants, vagabonds, bums, beggars, tramps, hobo, indigent, transient, proletariat, docile employees, wheel of commerce, interchangeable cog, street-crazed, straight razor, James Jarvis