Olga Garcia Echeverria wrote this poem in response to the prompt “Burn Down the World.”
Burn Down the World
take it apart
piece by piece
like a jigsaw
like an erector set
Dump all the world’s trash
into the gutters
and then into the swollen gut
of the ocean–fuck it!
Watch the carcasses of fish float sideways
dull tattered scales
empty eye sockets
tiny fish mouths quivering
ceaselessly in the sea drift
(as if they were trying to say something)
Burn down the world you all
and then walk on the bones
of the salted and the charred
take a selfie with the powdery gray ashes
Post on Facebook
marvel at our survival and this conquest
that extends beyond the moon
and into the stars
Burn it all down like there’s no tomorrow
and then go to a march
any march
and march on towards Whatever
Laugh at the tag on the wall that says,
“If trees had guns, we’d all be dead”
and answer,
“But they don’t.
They don’t.
They don’t.”
dis•articulations 2015 