Breaking Noose
Who are you really shopping for, this holiday season?
It’s okay. You can admit it—you bought an item or two,
or ten, for yourself. Well, you can admit it if you bought
an item or two—or ten, for yourself. It’s okay. You can
admit it—Todd—if you bought an item or two, or ten, for
yourself. It’s okay. You can admit it—if you bought an
item or two (or ten!) for yourself. It’s okay, you can
admit it—if you bought an item or two, or ten, for
yourself. It’s okay. It’s okay! You can admit it—if you
maybe bought an item or two—or ten, for yourself. It’s
okay. Admit it: you bought an item or two, or three or
ten, for yourself. It’s okay, you can admit it if you
bought yourself one or two or ten things because a lot of
people do it.
Covfefe Goes Viral
“Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?”
—Cavafy
In the hills above the swamp, the drums
grow restless, the incantations swell—
galaxies of campfires populate the horizon.
Our potentate’s fingers tremble over runes,
their meaning assembling, disassembling—
his mane thick with a swarm of alphabets.
Each fawning consigliere is defenestrated,
cast from the tower which is also a sundial,
an inexorable clock. His inner thighs
scream sweat. Somewhere, a guillotine
sharpens itself, drools & drools.
Golden Shower Kompromat Haiku
O Katya O Sonya—
only you could love me enough
to wash me clean
Space Needle
—for Jeff Bezos
“And again I say onto you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”
—Matthew 19:24
Its steel pupil dilates, gapes
to hold the Seattle skyline
as the wealthy exhort their caravan through:
our pharaohs our masters
our amazonian barons gliding silent
on their circuitry of rivers—
liquidity cash-flow flood-plain.
A spire pierces the vellum of sky,
sharp as a cathedral, but blade-thin—
No nave, no altar, no congregation
to get in the way of stitching shut
the fabric of space-time look look man
look on what ye have sewn.
Telescope
Sailor, the words assemble
as you peer through your sextant:
constellations of hieroglyphics
coming into focus
even as the sea beneath you yaws,
& you’re illumined
by long-extinguished stars—
a light you translate feverishly,
galaxies of Morse code winking
across the firmament,
a broken missive you strain to decipher:
. . — . . . — — . . h ow
. . . . . — h ow d dare y ou — — . .
— . . de . . d estroy your gift
Those Who Hope Are the Beautiful Creatures
Not nihilism precisely, but honesty:
watching the naïve
grow more beautiful
with every sentence they utter.
As if robots named Reapers aren't raining death
as if our economy isn't based on slavery
as if we aren't racing furiously towards apocalypse
as if we ourselves aren't the horsemen.
(Absence of fear is erotic
for biological reasons: how do you think
we made it this far?)