Stone Soup happened last night. Thanks to those who came in to our new location for the first time this week. I thought I was going into the open mic as a blank state, my mind tired from all the poems (published and unpublished) that I had written the previous week. I suppose the news, as "good" as it's been lately, affected me more than I thought. I am happy that people are being punished, but there's still that feeling that it's all too little too late. Take that into account with the poem below. Thanks for reading.
To a Dictator Dying Well
Hands smooth and bloodless,
you could partake wine
in the Paris bathroom
that charges you by the minute.
You lobby the weather,
the hurricanes, to stick to
tossing the shanty towns,
the shithouse shacks.
Sometimes you no longer
want to be you, but just be,
a phrase you heard once
and took it to mean God,
to own everything without
feeling the rules of finance,
the immaculate transaction,
no exchange, everything owned.
Every cashed check, comped meal
feeling every bit as good
as a summer memory
you will rewrite on a whim.
Every campfire tale you ever
stumbled on concluding
as ritual in your name,
perfect endings etched in marble.
Clever metaphors from enemies
come down as real to strike them.
You're in it for the screams now,
even from your loyalists,
your fingers in everyone's ashes,
your trademark in all our cancer,
a copyright on the enhanced lamb
served up on the slab.
Your Godhead a selfie stick,
perfect recall for each conquest,
mistletoe for ceaseless celebration,
a solstice whenever you wish.
A perfect pole with no equator
axis spins on your finger
too fast to keep anyone upright
ever again.
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| Bil Lewis came in late and still put himself as number one. Shenanigans! |
Special thanks to Bil Lewis, Shannon O'Connor, Julia Vogel, Chris Fitzgerald, Michael Igoe, Martha Boss, David Miller, Jan Rowe, Nancy Messom, Steven Gillies and James Van Looy.
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