The Graffiti Crew at the End of an Empire
A man in a “Kafka for President” shirt took a taxi to the library, downtown, because it was raining. When he arrived at the grandiose library he ordered a black tea at the coffee shop in the lobby. The man in a “Kafka for President” shirt sipped on the bitter tea as he read a book of haiku poetry. The book was called, “Rains of the Past.” At sunset, he walked home.
In another life, the man in a “Kafka for President” shirt had been the leader of a criminal organization. Their crimes were painting the city with vivid neon language. Words like: Exist. Realm. Façade. Chaos. Ghost. Winter. At the end of the ornamental empire, the man in a “Kafka for President” shirt celebrated with his graffiti crew and a bottle of champagne. He toasted to minimalism. To frugality. He toasted to light rain; to immortality.
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of a chapbook of prose poems: The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020) and the forthcoming full-length collection: Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He teaches generative workshops for Litro Magazine, Hugo House, Lighthouse Writers Workshops, The Writer’s Center, Beyond Baroque, The Adirondack Center for Writing, and elsewhere.