[Text only version below]

STREET FIGHTER IS GENOCIDE’S BABE

1987. 

ROUND 1: WAR MACHINES ARE COIN-OPERATED ARCADE GAMES

You are in a twisted daze

You are at the edge of a neon machine, at the lip of a coin slot, before the fight

You are in a fight of neon, a joystick’s hum and a button’s push

You are dazed coin-deep at the slot’s lips, the joystick’s twisted hum pushes your neon buttons

They will starve or eat hadoukens

You still have a fist full of quarters

INSERT COIN. SELECT YOUR FIGHTER.

ROUND 2: PENNY SPRAYS AND JUVENILE PLAYS ARE JUST AS GREEDY AS A BULLDOZER’S MOUTH 

FIGHT!

air thick with tension/for you and them/you think it’s just a game/mashing up combos of bashing banging bulldozing/signature fireballs/or drone strikes/(y)our pennies piss pus and spit blood/shoryuken!/in their mouths/pixelated bodies/their bodies are just pixels/faces flicker/opponents stop respawning/it’s not Ken/it’s a kid/spinning sunbird kicks/the machine says finish him/the kid says/which me will survive bulldozers undoing God?/screaming through static/seeping splattering streaming

i can only ask does your blood not move?

NEXT ROUND? 

ROUND 3: CHEW LIFE INTO DEBRIS FOR ME TO DISH-WASH AND MAKE POETRY OF 

[BACK] [BACK] [BACK]

TIME IS RUNNING OUT

[FORWARD]

[LIGHT PUNCH]

[HEAVY KICK]

what is left 

after the ruthless dance of blows

is gagging poetry

ghazals are gutted 

syllables spewing K.O!

stop turtling behind

luminescent screens glitching

you must swallow +3  KILLS

BODY COUNT: 521

you wish it was dish-soap 

in your mouth instead.

the machine thanks you

ignore the neon rubble

this is your haven.

Game over. Continue? INSERT COIN. INSERT COIN. INSERT GENOCIDAL COIN. INSERT COIN. INSERT COIN. INSERT COIN. INSERT COIN. INSERT COIN. INSERT COIN TO CONTINUE WAR. INSERT COIN. INSERT COIN. New player steps forward.