WHEN THE BOMBS…

       Remember to wake up when the bombs tell you to, or you’ll have to find out what everybody else knows already, and didn’t you get it on the news,

       or did you sleep through it yesterday, when the bombs fell, and only find out from the flying piece of newsprint that you grabbed while standing on the sidewalk, while the mutants pitied you, so condescending?

       When bombs fall, it’s often quite a noisy event, so how could you have slept through it all, even if you were so drunk on Jäger, that if they told you that the reindeer was really a Christian, you’d believe it.

       When one is hung over, loud noises really hurt, so you must have really been conked out, when the bombs fell, and you didn’t feel the floor under your bed dissolve like sugar.

       When you wake up after bed-surfing down the street, that’s a good indicator that your house is gone. Look at you, naked and covered in cement dust! Cover up with a sheet, the mutants are laughing!

       When the bombs fell last week, you should have received a notice in the mail, telling you what to do next. Having a demolished mailbox is no excuse! Don’t go begging the mutants for instructions.

       If a bomb falls next to you, pick it up gently. Remember, it’s more afraid of you than you are of it. Whatever you do, do not show it to the mutants; they are bored with it, already.

       When the bombs fall, and a mutant finds you, do not run away. Let it eat your burnt skin away. This is how they groom each other, like monkeys, like goldfish at a fancy pedicure salon.

       When the bombs fell, we discovered our inner snakes. We mutated a coat of feathers. We glided over the burnt-out skylines, like Icarus in dress rehearsal. We are the mutants, laughing.

Bruce V. Bracken is a poet/spoken word/language artist, a three-time Seattle Poetry Slam winner, as well as an eleven-year veteran of the Seattle poetry community, who shares the record with April Ardito, of the Worcester Poetry Slam, for hosting the world’s longest poetry slam (96 hrs.) during Nationals in 2001. Bruce V. Bracken hopes to perfect dihydro-testosterone, and sell it as a topical solution to men who hate having to shave their heads. Bruce V. Bracken is politically inconvenient. Bruce V. Bracken won the pushcart prize, but lost it when QFC wanted their shopping cart back. Bruce V. Bracken has taught the youth nothing.

Copyright © 2011 Bruce V. Bracken