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clippings (Helene)

poem from reworked found text and memory, september-October 2024

01

09.27.24

An anthropogenic table of elements!
where surging waters described as "unsurvivable" could reach as high as 20 feet in places, the bodies of children with neurodevelopmental disorders don’t clear these plasticizers as well as other children
while the impact is not known, the eye of the plasticizer will pass over this area says the governor

If Ian was the size of Ohio, Helene is the size of many states of emergency at once,
a constant aerosolized drape over the whole southeast, if everything is wrong nothing is wrong and the alarms all sing together
in close harmony
In Panacea, Florida, my host sets an expectation for the universe
In Virginia, a preemptive declaration of emergency—

When will the declaration become permanent and universal!? I’m done with this patchwork bullshit we are all drowning but I mean some of us WAY more than others
If you’re in a mobile home, if you are your own home, nothing but a buoy body tossed on high seas of chemicals—
They’re saying the surge is UNSURVIVABLE and the cynics have already pulled their dollars out

Halfway to the cliff of 2050 and still taking halfmeasures and still constructing new plants I mean new cathedrals on quicksand on sinkholes and on land borrowed from the ocean herself
OF COURSE SHE FUCKING EXPECTS US TO PAY HER BACK SHE IS THE FUCKING OCEAN, 80% undiscovered just like every other girl I know!!

Not to be un-PC but like, we have been asking for it big time!! The frat boy shrugs his shoulders
yeah the world is set up just fine for YOU whose name is like a four-pronged key to unlock success, first name, middle name, nickname, last name, “the fourth” (it’s true what they say that the more letters behind the man’s name the worse he is in bed and maybe the more sad inside but in a way that seems interesting until one’s jaw hits the shockingly shallow bottom of his inner life, tried to be tender to you but I ended up BITING THE CURB IN 4K) (hey A*** do you still have that job your daddy got you? Are you still miserable? Are you married to someone with the proper pedigree, unlike me? Can your universe still only experience itself under the conditions of total oblivion? Remember our first kiss? Remember when you walked into the room when your roommate was just done ⛝⛝⛝⛝⛝⛝ me for the second time? (You were in a tuxedo, an important detail! Were you born in one?))

02

09.29.24

Damnbreak considered imminent —

the candidate has received burns while attending a truck show but was in good spirits as branches, logs and a dumpster floated across Asheville’s Biltmore Village, renowned for being BUILT and OWNED by a single INDIVIDUAL, as record ocean heat turned neighborhoods into lakes and picked up cars like toys

"...never seen anything like this. Post apocalyptic even just a double tap a heart react ANYTHING to let me know you’re alive!! they were fine but their neighbors, their neighbors were...[hushed] washed out...The world I keep coming back to...is apocalyptic”

For You,
Georgia chemical plant fire forcing evacuations and road closures
‘not near enough’
the wrong people are getting hotboxed with vinyl chloride, w/ chlorine gas, w/ vinyl chloride, w/ chlorine gas, w/ fire, w/ flood
I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE
like the bottom of a river
like River Oaks
like a Porsche SUV flipped over on the median, cops swarming the driver shrugging
like ringing in the new year with a glossy black Mercedes flipped over at I-10 and Montrose right near Party Boy and
FULL BODY MASSAGE

03

09.30.24

~~Helene~~ Extraction kills at least 30 90 ~~130~~ ~~150~~ ~~227~~ TK
homes and memories washed away feared still more bodies
share this (the schism of disaster) with people so that damage and lost economic output will become clearer
(i-26 to 74 was open in both directions but you can’t go nowhere, it’s a scary feeling)
a lite version of the site has been turned on in areas down over the river that had swallowed he and his wife

"No gas! Cash only! No gas!"

dug through seagrass and dead fish in the office of the hotel they owned
Any chance of repair for these? places where crews have been able to enter, little is left
a drone view shows a damaged area
a U.S. flag lies in the mud, in the aftermath a bridge kneels and home sat flat in the dirt its walls blown away
gas and power beyond
Hang Tuff
one really violent day would solve it but
make sure you have enough gas to get there. &
drive in daylight.

04

10.02.24

“They are watching 18wheelers and cars
floating by,” loved ones had told them
they were not advised what to do and those cakes were already made so we actually had to cut up all those wedding cakes and give them away to the people

words like that are quite a mouthful and one that America needs to spit out before
we choke on it while clinging to a roll of plastic tubing, flip through pictures, think about the good times, laugh, cry, try to keep myself busy until:

SIGNS are observable indicators of a physical or mental challenge in the body while
SYMPTOMS are indicators of a physical or mental challenge that a person can feel in the moments before workers at IMPACT PLASTICS were swept up in Helene's flooding and
CRISIS SYMPTOMS are dramatic changes in mood, feeling trapped, like there is no way out of “a moment when faith is all you have”

05

10.04.24

a pair of horses named Wink and Nudge
their way thru floodwater as
huge oil storage tanks belch a cloud of smoke in a new danger aria and
the tanker Chevron Hawaii lists heavily to starboard so many hollers
warned of rains that preceded even more rain warmer seas mean more hurricanes on way

She’s probably all the way up to heaven,
telling Jesus what he should be doing, she’s
so inaccessible that supplies are being delivered by mules and by air,
delivered to safety by the dog who led rescuers to her injured owner
RESCUE ME
“At least my dog is rescued!”

Another mother was killed as well, believed to have been touched off by lightning
and some people used the moment to push the false idea of a government-made-weather-modification-weapon

A 1910 house floats upstream,
'completely majestic like a ballerina'
without the tools to identify truth and deception
they’ll sit in the dark

06

10.04.24

MARKET WATCH!
looking at property in Florida at a reduced price
Is now a good time to strike a deal??
as oil recoils,
Pumps wrapped in plastic as Milton nears
as it soaks up its natural fuel, warm water in the Gulf, “it seems like you just never really know who to believe,”

never really know what is the strongest hurricane ever, its 'compact eye' barely an eye at all
all eyewall, spinning ballerina-like
if warnings were not heeded or adequate warnings were not given, well...
evacuate WHERE
write your name and social on your arm
experts repeat,
meteorologists cry on air,
and nuisance gators that would have otherwise been destroyed hunker down

she slunk back to her home and camped out in the only semihabitable room of her "castle,"
a nymphlike statue poised outside
white car riding on concrete blocks
“You’re picking and pulling straws here,
It’s a two-headed coin.
Scary either way.”

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