Burbank.
Mid-morning.
I wonder what it feels like
to fly through clouds of smoke
from burning Canada,
if you can hear
the glitching bells of Las Vegas
from 20,000 feet,
if the downwinders of New Mexico
more acutely feel the rumble overhead.
Every pilot had to learn
something through the haze,
often with no notice.
Especially after they realized
that a plane can also be a bomb.
But when the moving parts
of the atmosphere
close in around us?
When the design of our streets
and buildings
take the shape
of the breaking wheel?
When the napalm
learns to laugh
at a golf joke?
Now that the air
can slice us open?
There’s a TSA agent,
grinning at the thought
that a 737 might be hijacked
using a disposable razor.
It’s getting confiscated
in any event.
I will be speaking at the twentieth annual Historical Materialism conference, which is being held 9 – 12 November at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. I will be presenting a paper titled “A Great Composer of Time: The Post/Anti/Humanist Socialism of Jóhann Jóhannsson.” More details are to come, but some of what I will be speaking on can be found in this post from February. More information about HM can be found on its website.