Read our October/November 2018 issue in full here.

Fake Noose

My smartphone is a nesting doll.
Suspiciously heavy & rattling faintly
like a Tsar’s saber, sheathed—
Something doesn’t add up.
I open her like a jam-jar, find
Henry Kissinger head-scarved
& peasant-skirted, clutching
his Nobel peace prize—but I pop him
like a Bud-light. And then Putin glistens
bare-breasted—I twist his hips apart
& that’s when it happened.
It was, like, a farm spilling out—
It was a Like-Farm. So many emperors
in that circus giving me a thumbs-up.
That sound of one hand, clapping.
I had so much consent manufactured,
my applause was deafening. Now
I can do anything, even speak French.
Listen—alternatif fact—pas de deux—
nom de guerre—coup d’état—la la, la—

Bullets

We are the doorway yawning
—through which this world’s
last tigress will exit.
—But we will also feed you
& we will set your nation free,
—should you ever want it to be free.
Don’t deny us—you disembowelled
––whole mountain ranges
to forge us—just think of that.
—(Or think of starlight:
the universe riddled
—by our leaving
—& what shines through it)

 

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