imaginary cities: toxi —

City of organisms. City of organs. City of tissue. Organisms that change shape depending on the flow of traffic. Organs that thump and glow, in time with the jingling of beggars in the aisles. Tissue that blows in the wind and is mistaken for snow, finally alighting upon a loudspeaker. City of poisoned organisms pelting streetwalkers with shame, bludgeoned in turn by firehoses and backdrafts. City of poisoned organs that sing songs about the girl who was supposed to be here yesterday, with just the faintest taste of Christmas carols. City of poisoned tissue, readable in the grey cheeks of strangers, interpreted by the buzz lights of the underpass, irretrievably cold. City of organic organs and hipster drills, banshee wails and coo-eyed blubber, wilting on the footpaths and draped across the bridges, inviting guests to their strange womb-like corps. City of organ tissue sandblasted and bent, rent from the chaos hole of delirium and banged up on newsprint and grape soda. City of tissue organisms eradicated by the serpent-wail of thyme, fists gnashed on the energy pill of transmigration, hollow and vile. City of humans. City of bacterium. City of plants. Humans that change shape depending upon the snow of tissue. Bacterium that thumps and glows, like miniature foot-pedal organs. Plants that blow in the wind, giving the unharnessed spinning energy of the planet a silhouette. City of poisonous humans caught up in the mash-grind of carbon disintegration, flopped on benches, tooled on shoeshine. City of poisonous bacterium visible only from the sunspots on Mars, licenced to shrill, band-aided as a precautionary pleasure. City of poisonous plants, ring-barked by scientists, drooling sap and shedding leprous leaves. City of human bacterium that croaks, splattered on the windmills of pain, ground down by the aching of boots, stapled to the gum freeze of spring. City of bacterial plants, viral and mutant as yesterday’s breeze, shape-shifting the sky and catapulting through smog. City of human plants, mocked by the sapiens, indulged by the worms, pitied by everyone for their willowy wrists. Human city of bacterial plants, filled with ripe organisms, dead organs and the ghost of a tissue, like a frozen sheet of snow, in the smudged sky, the toxic sky, called home.