Era of the Silent Song by Andre F. Peltier

On the post-Anthropocene

wasteland lunch-carts,

we find a menu to die for.

They careen over forgotten

sunshine highways

bringing tacos, milkshakes,

onion rings, falafel

to the people in the ditches

of moonrise avenue wisdom.

Those walkers wait with thumb

to the majesty of purple skies,

pack and bag strung on

their shoulders;

they wait for the end of tomorrow.

And when night falls with

the weight of an anvil

with the weight of a fourth story piano

dangling, dangling

above Spanish Harlem,

above Cass Corridor steam,

the guttermen wander back

to the shadows

and hide from the post-

Anthropocene coyotes, condors,

and jack rabbis.

The age of man expiated

the age of man.

The age of the scavenger awaits

in the shadows.

The time of snow-blind

taco-trucks.

The era of the silent-

song.

---

Andre F. Peltier is a Lecturer III at Eastern Michigan University in Yp[silanti, MI where he lives with his family. His poetry has been published in Big Whoopie Deal, Tofu Ink, and Fahmidan and is forthcoming from various journals. In his free time, he obsesses about comics and soccer.

@aandrefpeltier