It was anarchy. We burned
mannequins in the streets
until the hoses sprayed us out.
They toppled under the pressure,
tumbling into sidewalk crowds,
still flaming. It caught the fabric
of one woman’s gray dress.
Dazed, she ran into the building,
searching for water. Instead
she found files, paper stacks,
photographs, all ablaze.
This incident might have
made the front page, but
the office burned with her
anarchistic screams.
Doug Paul Case studies writing, literature, and publishing at Emerson College, where he serves as poetry editor of The Emerson Review.
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Posted on June 13, 2009 in Literary
7 Responses to “DEJA VU • by Doug Paul Case”
Comments
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June 13th, 2009 at 5:00 am
I read this a few times. I quite liked it, thanks.
June 13th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Moral – If your dress is in flames, rip it off or else you’ll be screaming-like. But the woman should have noticed in the first paragraph that there were hoses all over the street and she could have had taken her pick, running through the street over to any of them even though they are so BIG she might have toppled, sort of.
June 13th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Is the point of anarchy to make the front page?
–dj
June 13th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
dj barber – It seems more like a protest against a department store than actual political anarchy. It might even be a personal grudge “writ large” against the owner. Terrible society where the people are willing to say or do anything dishonest or anything violent to another merely to injure or get attention.
Amy – WHY did you like it?
June 14th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
How depressing.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Very dark piece. I felt hopelessness in it.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:37 am
[...] Writing My latest Bad Poem got published at Every Day Poets a couple weeks ago. It’s called Deja Vu, and while I liked it at the time, I’ve now recognized it as the piece of crap it is. [...]