Calisthenic 1 and Free Write 1, Week 6

Polished version of today's in-class exercise (I have chosen to combine it with the free write I posted yesterday morning):

"Boca Raton Wasn't Ready, Either"

I.  Aujourd'hui

The birds are never honest--
     hedonists that consume, consume, consume
till they can barely move.
They switch to autopilot (the birds are not fools).
Their engines hum incessantly,
and black exhaust breaks free
from their bony beaks.

II.  Hier

When the birds collide or
     crash into abandoned mountain sides,
barefoot children in New Orleans can feel
the earth's lid vibrate beneath them.
Yet the little ones stand tall, above the world,
holding signs that do not plea for help--
     they scream through deep, black letters
     and white paper-board.  Far too long--
isolated to themselves, with white all around,
white that did not mind the weather,
white that watched the black letters wash away
like ink running down a white page--
a white bystander that cannot stop the destruction
or escape the earth's clutch without effect.

III.  Demain

"Fuck Roosevelt," their grandparents yelled,
after birds mindlessly crashed into an Hawaiian beach.
No one says "fuck Roosevelt" anymore.  Just "fuck."
But never to themselves.
They'll die like hamsters strangled in a fist
before they denounce Roosevelt again.  They swear.