Isn’t
Donald’s farting mouth that troubles me
his defecating lips
have done more for Democrats
than Quayle did for potatoes
or Palin’s Russian garden
did for geography
Isn’t the millions of dollars
Trump pisses into America’s living rooms
it’s the toupee that Whigs me out [Read more…]
While the world
paints itself into corners
flowers of evil bloom:
Borders close
troops are called in
security tightens its grip on the free
liberty, abandoned for barricades [Read more…]
Under glaring lights
pupils constrict
earth gets smaller
Overwhelmed tide pools shrink
breathing becomes labored
fish run out of water
inches from sea [Read more…]
It sucks
when grandma lies through teeth
chewing gums
selling machine embroidered cloth
as handmade lace
Blame it on the financial crisis:
doublespeak
for unnatural selection [Read more…]
We take off our shoes
before entering the mosque
Bare feet hovering
over red and gold carpet
We pause inside a prayer niche
carved with familiar stars
[Read more…]
By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
Skimming glassy waves
Beaded strands of water fly
From crests, closing lips
The nosediving sun ascends
Into heaven once again [Read more…]
Why
travel 7,000 miles
through 9 time zones
metal detectors
security checkpoints
layovers?
Endure delays
breathe recirculated air
exchange one currency for another
at inflated rates?
Why
leave the comfort of one’s native language
for a foreign tongue
landing
on an island
surrounded by turbulence
gambled away by offshore money lenders –
it’s geography: A garment
divided between soldiers
of foreign empires? [Read more…]
Lashing out
of imperial robes
at Saint Paul’s pillar
where the founder of Christianity
was whipped by its father
Sun
striking me
with its scorpion tail
One soft drink
from heatstroke and Parousia
when, “A fisher of men,”
limped toward me
rattling small change in a paper cup [Read more…]
Two months after Europe
I boarded a westbound plane
for map coordinates
that used to be home
Three hours of shuffling
through the labyrinth of London’s
border bureaucracy
to obtain the minotaur’s stamp [Read more…]
A cloud
is suffocating
the splintered island
Groves of umbrellas
folded into deserted beachfronts
smothered
by ashes of Armenian children
burned alive by the same state of repudiation
stabbing
unhealed wounds [Read more…]
Lovers
still visit Aphrodite’s Rock
Swim
three times around
the birthplace of Venus
in hopes they might return
holding the sand of lifetimes
cupped between hands [Read more…]
The headless human
is a jackass
sinking kleptocratic teeth
into veins
A comicstrip
stripping the naked
from truth [Read more…]
