Poetry as Placeholder
While we catch our breath and continue to process what’s happened, and what’s going to happen (I have many thoughts, and I wonder: do I need to write them down? Does anyone need to read them?), as a placeholder it seems appropriate to revisit this set of haikus, published in spring ‘23 (on April Fools’ Day, no less—how you like them apples? Also, 2023…were we ever so young?).
Six Haikus for America
Capital Ism
How do we expect
All that wealth to trickle down
If we enforce laws?
Windows of the Soulless
Our eyes reveal all.
So we spray Windex on them;
Wonder why we’re blind.
Whitey Pluribus Unum
White lives do matter,
That’s how our country was born:
It takes a village.
Trump Stakes
It’s not that complex:
Quisling born rich without class,
Well-done, with ketchup.
Free Dumb
The rich earn each cent.
The poor deserve what they get,
Freedom is not free.
The Indivisible Hand
Is willing to kill
Everything except cliché:
No ending’s happy.
(Chaser: Poem written in 2020)
Uncle Sam’s Embarrassment
(for George Floyd)
I see trees of green, stoic in the setting sun, strange
fruit a shadow that shames Nature, unnatural, some rot
that blossoms inside certain men, a privileged pestilence
(in the dark sacred night),
like the perverse hope of hate, like anything other than love:
bad memories abounding as His Story repeats itself (He ain’t
me, at least)—a last long gasp of confused fury, at long last?
And I think to myself: what a wonderful world
these prayerful types fancy: the purity
(of a bright blessed day)
when a bleached Christ returns
to our corrupted earth, with blood and fire
to baptize the worthy and the right.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white sheets, but also black
Ks behind the eyes of blank men in blue uniforms, the streets
a stage for their St. Vitus Dance; blood on hands pumping gas
into the tearful eyes of brothers (and sisters), muscle militarized—
and presumptively innocent of anything they might do—
in the service of protecting the mighty
frightened men who order their marching.
And I think to myself: what a wonderful world this is,
in the red and dry eyes of those whites.
Look: the colors of the rainbow, on flags and in crowds,
defiant solidarity in the name of what never was,
(we had a dream).
I see friends shaking, their hands cuffed as faceless forms
stuff them roughly into unmarked cars, b/c that’s how it’s done
these days, only now there’s a new democracy: anyone—
and it could be everyone—in their sights,
naked of weapons or clothes altogether,
empty of violence and filled with such unforgivable thoughts
of freedom, now…and I think to myself: What?
A wonderful world this never was.
I think. To myself:
What?
A wonder
Full World.
Yes. I think
(to myself):
What a wonderful world.