Extinction Piece
2019

 

 

The road to ruin is paved with good intentions
Hell is full of good meanings
Heaven is full of good works

The earth owes you precisely nothing
And you assume she will adapt to your needs!
She’d rather test how little you need
She decides how much she gives
Of what you need

I have a vision
Of panelled rooms in taupe
Carpeted richly
Reminding a nodding audience
That it doesn’t matter
(It doesn’t matter)
We were fucked last night and still slick tomorrow
It was a gross fuck arrhythmic, lacking eye contact
Comes with a squinty rictus, licked one index finger
A foreknowledge of deeds that say
I wanna dig and squeeze and scratch that itch, baby

It’s not wrong if grave consequences
Precede careful reasoning
It’s not our fault, it’s your profligacy
It’s everyone’s responsibility
Maybe it’s shielded in a film of good
But the results are perfunctory

He doesn’t know what to do
He makes excuses down the highway
On the scenic route
He tilts his head to the side
He furrows his brow with careful words
How do you think he pays for all this?
But he laments the light
Because he recognizes beauty
He should recognize the imperilment of beauty
He believes in law and government
(like I strain to)
He sits in the cold
Watching killer whales feast on herring spawn
(My negative number will not, instead knows)
Only exploded stomachs in technicolour stretches
Yeah it’s called plastic and it lives in you too

I have been led to another place
But the room I picture remains the same for 200 years at least
Nodding at hidden truths
We suspect but fear to acknowledge
Yeah the earth is dying, what’s your point?
How rich can we get and how normal can we make it?
“Remember that I have the right to do anything to anybody.”
So let’s get fucking rich.

We are extremely small
And have made up our minds too early
How long will we pray to the god of adaptability?
Like I add repetition to this song
Like I add chance to this unpredictability.

We accept the solidity of expiration dates
Death to ourselves and everyone else, to
The Pinta Island Tortoise
The Caribbean Monk Seal
The Canarian Oystercatcher
The Mariana Mallard
The Dusky Seaside Sparrow
The Mexican Grizzly Bear
The Javanese Tiger
The Saudi Gazelle
The Scimitar Oryx
The Forest Ox
Garrido’s Hutia
The Dinagat Bushy-Tail Cloud Rat
The Wondiwoi Tree Kangaroo
The Japanese Sea Lion
The Golden Toad
The Conondale Gastric Brooding Frog
The Black-Faced Honeycreeper
The Saint-Helena Earwig
The Morona-Santiago stubfoot toad
The Christmas Island shrew
The San Quintin kangaroo rat
The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō
The Socorro sowbug
The Scarlet harlequin toad
The Angel Island mouse
The Aru flying fox
The Cryptic Treehunter
Spix’s Macaw
The Monito skink
The Alagoas Foliage-gleaner
The Danube delta dwarf goby
The Sardohoratia sulcata
The Atelopus petersi
The Manombo
The Po’ouli
Chapman’s pygmy chameleon
The La Hoya minute salamander
The Eastern Puma
The Pyrenean ibex
The Central rock rat
The Yangtze River dolphin
The Kihansi spray toad
The Selmunett wall lizard
The Western black rhinoceros
The Northern White Rhinoceros
The Vietnamese Javan rhinoceros
The Plectostoma charasense
The Burdur spring minnow
The Christmas Island pipistrelle

Every single one of them is a miracle of evolution
A million year old teething splay of small change that is gone
Gone

We peer through portals
At blurry secrets
Of the sky and our futures
Pasts outside remembrance

 

Bitsy Knox & Roger 3000 · Extinction Piece
  • This piece was first performed at Schloss Salon, Berlin (invited by Sofia Leiby).
  • A second iteration of this poem was performed with expanded sound and choreography at Soft Politics, Berlin Project Space Festival, July 2019, commissioned by Ashley Berlin. More here.
  • This piece was released by Bitsy Knox & Roger 3000, and is available here.
  • Copyright © 2019 Bitsy Knox, all rights reserved.