In certain ways the thirty-year old guy with the man-bun
and beard wearing a neatly fitting tee shirt on a summer day
is just as much of an asshole as the drunk guy with the
Confederate flag and gun who ends up shooting himself
in the leg thinking he’s defending America from the next
great invasion, each deluded by the pressure and trends
within their respective peer groups, except it’s unlikely
that the hipster with the man-bun is ever going to shoot
anyone or consciously exercise his political will for the
purpose of oppressing anyone who doesn’t look like him,
while the only person the good ole guy with the gun is
going to save is a man wearing a three piece suit who worries
less about his sagging balls than the possibility that his profits
might one day sag along with them. And so the system
as it now exists continues to flourish like influenza and
seasonal allergies, depending on the time of year, and
its structures are firmly in place to the benefit of the
idle rich and in deference to the perverse dreaming
of the dwindling numbers of the upwardly mobile as
they trash and burn their merry way to their new luxury
condominiums decorated in beautiful pastel colors.
When I’m not dreaming in black and white my dreams
are the color of monsters, of the scary characters in fairy tales
the way they were originally written, full of sadness and
distress and cold, bitter endings. But every day I wake up,
every day I open my eyes and feel alive. Every day I consider
the effect of wind and falling rain on white marble monuments,
and wonder how the colors of the ancient world might be
best applied in the creation of new civilizations, new names.

-Jose Padua

Photograph by Jose Padua. Although this poem shares a title with the book that’s coming out in the spring, it’s not part of that collection.