The Weather is dull, all Flora, withered— Into Poetry’s ruins snakes have slithered; Customs forgotten, sick mammals slain. Now vampires infect me: **** on the brain…
While Disney exports multicultural trash The vatos and thugs burn the barrio to ash. Yet my lovely muse lifts me above the crisis: Revealing conspiracy as rational analysis; In her shimmering shroud, she defies the fates. My hometown nostalgia out-bunkers Bill Gates; I look out my window. Joy turns to mass death: Old love-letters blown on Corona-breath.
I hide unicorn carcasses from my daughter. Instead, we read Exodus: angels, plagues, slaughter. She’s too young to know what is sold in the street Or whether Hondurans arrive on their feet And if what they carry is bitter or sweet . . . Our online Amazon: jungle or obituary? Webster just shrugs. It’s not in his dictionary.
PROMPT #26: fill out the following Almanac Questionnaire. Use your responses as the basis for a poem.
Weather: dull Flora: withered Architecture: ruins Customs: forgotten Mammals/reptiles/fish: snakes and pangolins Childhood dream: Dracula Found on the Street: **** mags Export: Disney Graffiti: Chicano gangs Lover: my muse Conspiracy: rational analysis Dress: shroud Hometown memory: nostalgia Notable person: BIll Gates Outside your window, you find: joy Today’s news headline: mass death Scrap from a letter: thrown out Animal from a myth: unicorn Story read to children at night: Exodus Walk three minutes down an alley and find: ****** You walk to the border and hear: scheming Hondurans What you fear: consumerism Picture on your city’s postcard: Noah Webster