Category: English poetry

i heard of the city warden who arranged
all the files in the station computer
based on dante’s nine circles of hell.
it was back in the day when computers
were rare and overlooked harbingers
of what was yet to come. imagine his
successor’s bewilderment at the sight
of the latin names left by the prankster.

but was he really one or was he rather
a visionary?

remember, remember
the june fourth and the embers
who stood against bullets and tanks.
i know of no reason
why the country turned prison
should ever have this forgotten!

they cried out for freedom,
but the communists, who enslaved ‘em
brought death and oblivion instead.
and the dollars of silence
for the business compliance
that are covered in innocent blood.

so remember, remember
next june fourth bring an ember
to the square wherever you live.
maybe then, like this end,
our almighty percent
stops flirting with the red regime.

the house i live in is made of granite.
its thick stone walls block radio waves
and strangers’ stares. its windows face
a distant echo of a judy garland song.

the house i live in is now my home
forever.

conditioned by the algorithm, i swipe right
across the puzzling realms of online dating
to see if my world remains binary. it is not
like i cannot please myself (what a surprise,
the poet also masturbates), but you have to
admit it is hard to hug yourself, is it not?

i was reading the satanic verses
in a hospital bed as the drip rinsed
the remnants of an overdose
of antidepressant from my veins.
the doctor said i was lucky
and i agreed with him,
the book was great.

sometimes i think of my foreign language
teachers. i doubt they remember me. i certainly
forgot the cyrillic alphabet, the latin declension,
the scribble on the margins of the hellenike glotta,
the tricky pronunciation of streichholzschächtelchen,
and the mockery of the poor monsieur jourdain’s trill.

sometimes i think of my foreign language
as passing.

i sleep
on my right side
facing her as if she
were not sleeping
unaware.

then we dream
of all illocutions,
unfortunate remarks
and deliberate
omissions.

i still sleep
on my right side
facing her as if she
were not sleeping
elsewhere.

hi, my name is… bleak and i am
a poet. anonymous as i would be
if i were handing down a word
from an auctor that i have found
myself attached to, somehow
forgotten, a long time gone,
i am regaining that first person
singular i was supposed to be,
the once abandoned punctuation,
and the disorderly grammar
of everyday expectations.

perhaps i am still a bit afraid
of capital letters. the odd burden
of solemnity attached to them
neither blends with absurdity
of the rituals around closing doors,
nor does it soothe all yearnings
for a little peace of belonging.
but in the scheme of things,
if what actually matters here
is essence over appearance,
i may still have a word to say.