The Slaughter of Common Senses / Scott Burnam
our sight no longer sees that all the truths are lies disguised as Doordashers
our glasses/contacts/Lasik too blunt and analog for the digital nuances of their plainclothes costumes and props
delivering false facts; details of facts; facets of details; edges of facets until we just accept them, exhausted
and hearing, too: the Trojan Horse of the sound bytes, finely manufactured, manicured to white-noise distortion
the holes allow the passthrough without the stickiness of correct memory
unless it’s a song lyric but we mishear those at an alarming rate: ash/ask, dust/trust, fighting/dying
we touched more truth when we were youthful; the virginal dalliances of our uncalloused hands
conducted electricity like silver underwater and the connection was
unmistaken but we grew up and put on these insulating mittens
while you might be able to smell a lie, the only truths you can smell are shit and tear gas
filtered from the dumpster of olfactory garbage those two small, too-small
nostrils breathe in and the chemistry behind the triggers that fire in our brain for more food
so for now: don’t trust a truth unless you can taste it –
with blood, tears, and other bodily betrayals that you can roll around in your mouth with it
at least until they figure out Taste-O-Vision in the IMAX theaters
Shadow Cat, 2004 / David Estringel
–after Richard Hambleton (1952-2017)
Shadow cat
p r o w l
Low’r
East Village
silky
sidewalk
slink
lookin’ high
lookin’
low
‘round lampposts n’
alleyway
piss puddles
for
a tasty
trick
or treat.
Oil slick
tangles—
blacktarsexy
sheen—
brown sugar
smile
n’ puncture claw hunger
jonesin’
for the exhale
of a hypodermic
pounce.
Fat rat’s
‘round the corner
throwing bones
sniffin’ bacon
playing
its fat rat
games
ripe
for the pickin’
to plop
on the doorstep—
eight lives
d
o
w
n—
on this ol’ city
street
with a thump
(n’ a thump
n’ a thump thump thump)
n’
its lil baggies
o’ cheese.
night vision / Catherine Forest
A Strawberry moon
Cloudy iris and pupil
Redwood eyelashes
Ode to the Poet / Erika Seshadri
Answer to Pablo Neruda’s Sonnet XVII
Your words have never faltered in rhythm or strength
despite the delicate breath of life.
Your words, born from intractable thoughts
remain impressed with light upon my heart.
Your words pale the glory of empires
reducing them to cities of dust;
yet enshrine decrepit bungalows
where patent beauty persists.
I fear not the will of humanity, worn down to darkness
I fear not the wrath of any man, god, or demon
I fear not a cataclysm nor the end of all days:
What I fear is a life without your words,
Your words of lilacs and butterfly wings,
that sing to me in my dreams.
The Name Game / Arthur Turfa
Over two decades’ worth of summers
I spent more in deep woods than
deserts, wearing battle rattle, watching
a hundred pounds of steel shooting
downrange or location on position or
the other.
Sometimes we wondered why the
installation bore of name of a defeated
general- the one whose ill-fated charge
charge sent thousands to their deaths,
or one of the worst to issue an order.
Dixie Congressmen used their seniority
to glorify the Lost Cause. They added names
of the Virginian they lionized, the stubborn
bishop struck by a cannonball. Descendants
of slaves and GAR veteran streamed to
these posts.
New names granted, but faded like the
morning dew. Old names restored, books
taken off the shelves, and lies repeated
time and time again.
