Words of Fire
Recycling the City

was a time I would eat anything
torn from my body, as a city
recycles its bricks after trauma.
so I would eat the bitter black things,
those brittle wound stones. was a time, torn,
I’d eat anything from my body,
those yellowed bark ridges. a city
recycles gypsum after trauma.
I’d eat anything, pale crescents torn,
those Moor-less swords. after, a city
recycles. green things from my body,
those rotting gems. those sour gray things—
wasted clay. city, after trauma,
recycles its iron, those bones torn
from a city as though—a body:
those swords and bones, gypsum, gems, trauma:
a torn time recycled. a body
as a city, torn into a thing.
Source: The Black Automaton (2009), published by Fence Books.
An award-winning poet, performer and librettist, Douglas Kearney teaches at CalArts. His third full-length collection of poems, Patter, will be published in March 2014 by Pasadena’s Red Hen Press. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Altadena, he lives with his family in California’s Santa Clarita Valley

-
Latest NewsJune 17, 2025
A Coal Miner’s Daughter Takes on DOGE to Protect Miners’ Health
-
Beyond the BorderJune 10, 2025
Detained Man Says ICE Isn’t Treating His Colon Cancer
-
Column - State of InequalityJune 5, 2025
Budget Cuts Threaten In-Home Assistance Workers and Medi-Cal Recipients
-
Column - State of InequalityJune 12, 2025
‘Patients Will Suffer. Patients Will Die.’ Why California’s Rural Hospitals Are Flatlining.
-
Column - California UncoveredJune 18, 2025
Can Gov. Gavin Newsom Make Californians Healthier?
-
Featured VideoJune 10, 2025
Police Violently Crack Down on L.A. Protests
-
Latest NewsJune 4, 2025
Grace Under Fire: Transgender Student Athlete AB Hernandez’s Winning Weekend
-
Striking BackJune 3, 2025
In Georgia, Trump Is Upending Successful Pro-Worker Reforms