MONDAY
On Monday, the news anchor will mock me,
call me ugly and talentless.
She’ll laugh
her cruel laugh,
and provide unassailable proof:
You have lost loved ones,
which can only mean
that you
and your love
are disposable.
The Dramatic Days of Lesser Socialism
(or, an unfortunate series of unrelated things)
or lesser evilism
spectres of want and tragedy
our rape of revered ghosts
our politics of melancholy and cigarette smoke
the distressed voter
the incurable and dying worker lashed to incurable and dying pay scale
The Robot's Love Song
Come file off the rust of my grommets.
I have been longing to blow smoke into your apertures.
You remember the frozen steel of that stiff winter night,
How gleaming oil coursed across the gouged surface
Of that thing I have
Giving Up
It isn’t just giving up one time
It’s choosing to give up every day
That’s what completes the circuit
There is no other way to stop the Death Machine
On Hearing the News That George Floyd's Murderer Was Convicted
In a year (and half)
of fire
we learn a list of items
equally quotidian
and flammable
All Statues Toppled In Time
We are the fisherfolks, the gentlefolks, we don’t
Crosstalk over top-hats, tailcoats. They come
Visit from the city, twice every month. They want
Our fishes, our dishes, our bread.
The Boss
There was no silver here, nor gold, nor copper. There was little more than the occasional trickle of dank, green liquid oozing down the walls or across the uneven floor of the mineshaft. Still, they were sent down to dig.
Read MoreGeryon & Daedalus: A Conversation
Dear Orenda,
You subvert me at every twist of your head. Your dreamers lie prone in wait for salvation while the gusts beneath my wings torture their cheating hearts. The sheen of the scales on my back match the notches on their grimy tongues.
Read MoreBorn
Into a ballot box of pre-existing candidates / into an endless series of unlucky paychecks / into a Left of costume parties and facebook pages
Read MoreAmerican Orthodontics
Each mouth a wound or weapon.
If weapon, then the trigger is tongue
some men dispense for spectacle
for unfair light, teeth a crowding
Bagwood
your legs, a mess of wooden spears / to spindle-stomp a landlord
Read MoreMemoires de la Guillotine
we animate the damned / we wave our flags / we march / and / chant / “solidarity”
Read MoreTwo Minutes Past Midnight
Hitched a ride from a limousine / fueled by festered gout, / traveled every wrecked highway / until the fumes ran out.
Read MoreMike, the UPS Guy, Gives Birth to the New People, But Now the Moon is a Cartoon Bomb
Billie kept a jar of fire in her backpack / for cooking in parking lots / and a scimitar for cleaning gutter fish
Read MoreWhat I Did With My $600 At the End of the World
I invested in three cans of pepper spray / from the army surplus, / passed them out and bought ten more / to watch the masked kids / choke the air
Read MoreEnd of the World
Or, to quote Marilyn Monroe: / “Its good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal”
A Love Poem For Socialists
often / I have loved love / as a stranger // but not this hour // you are the witness / of my life
Read MoreMathematical
cult-ic </math>matics <an item> I will paint you into nothing
aligned=”equalized array”> sum strip you of your ears
she – it – he – us – you this is catastrophic
calculated iambic rotation
cukf can you cast out god
seagull
rodeo ford with pig seeps
clucking diamonds idiot martyr
“eat at joe’s” free cra b yokohama
all tuesday snoring
humble does snoozing
less ruminating don’t lie to me tom murphy
ascemia is my bodyguard
not me
or do
With the Threat of Heavy Fighting
With the threat of heavy fighting looming in the streets, many windows stayed open. The Holy Ones smacked their lips and twisted their fingers in their well conditioned hair.
Elsewhere…
...a man name Jacob fell dead on a thursday in the back of Factory #7. He was found at shift change tumbled over in a parts bin attacked by his own heart. A supervisor packed the contents of his break room locker into a mint tin and sent it to the coroner. His obituary would say that he was survived by a twelve hour swing shift.
Elsewhere…
...my rifle plants tomatoes and claps back on facebook. Big Momma and Big Black rule the roost in our backyard chicken coup. They don’t understand the meaning of class. Each morning we steal their eggs and feed them to the others.
Elsewhere…
...renters went out on strike. They threw up barricades at either end of sixth street. They shot an arrow into the wind with a note attached to it. The next day a truck full of pizzas arrived courtesy of the labor council. The note had said, “Send bullets”.
Elsewhere…
...there was a knock at the door. Maria Villareal opened it at 7:42:08. Three weeks later she was gone. They called it corona. Her obituary would say she was survived by an unlucky paycheck and 13 parking tickets.
Elsewhere…
...two mutual aid workers stabbed a fascist in an uptown alley. The police called it murder. The mayor said the victim was a good person. The barrio called it community defense and burned down a Walmart.
Elsewhere…
...They dug graves for the dead in abandoned parking lots. The coffins stretched for years.
Elsewhere…
Everywhere…
Always…
We’ve carried their boots. All we have to show for it is our chains.
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Good Bad Kid
I was born
in a flash
the morning sun
I was born
as a demon
to my mother; capricornic
all fresh, wet, and dripping
with the paint?
of someone's blood
and my great-grandfather's tobacco spit
my lungs both filled with water
I was already a special case
causing terror
delicate thing ruining lives
her face frozen as a twisted pale
statuette there was a truck parked
on her chest
my horns grew in and my
tongue was like a kriss
undulating steely sharp
edge a paradox
why did I plunge it through her heart
the lamb softly bleating fading out
and her tears slowly dripped into
her chest
I learned what I was.
Subscribe to Locust Review for as little as $1 a month.
Submit work to Locust Review by e-mailing us at locust.review@gmail.com.