The following poem was published in Locust Review #2.
Somewhere poetry
shot itself.
Our loves are on cardboard,
our minds can’t spin images.
Families cram
on smoke-filled beaches,
and cry dirty snow.
Other things happened
in between.
Dreams bound by red tape.
Another world war.
An A-bomb.
Seas swirled with plastic wrap
and cities sucked
into furnaces.
Shut up about you.
I want to talk about us.
I’ve seen throats
embraced by the Cross Country Express,
fresh faces strapped
to Gatling guns.
The only timeline
that spills out
is this one.
A hundred species are burning,
towns stare
yellow frog throats,
the wharves are striking
a choked sky.
Glass continent,
unpassable roads,
rabbit fence crosses.
The only war worth fighting is against the clouds.
And it’s stopped calling.
Did you ever walk
through a junkyard
and wish
Shakespeare could see it?
Would your loathed
Pushkin enjoy this false nova?
When you
smeared green paint
across threadbare feudal tables,
did you also have inklings
of everyone cowed?
How did you trick
yourself into praying to a god
that was yet to be built?
Did you,
mapping a new life from titanium,
ignore it in the ikon’s eyes?
Please,
believe in us
again.
Suck the poison
out your pen.
Teach us
hallucinations,
words that can
load rifles.
Nostalgia Anxiety, image by Adam Ray Adkins from Locust #2.
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