Well-Meaning Congeries Of Poets Bringing Further Order To The Universal Order Of Things

--on some lines by Rebecca Solnit* 

 

Billions upon billions 

Of stars given 

 

In the universe but how 

Is it we make our own 

 

Constellations? 

 

 

*"The stars we are given. 

The constellations we make."

 

Resolute Irresolution Of The Wishy-Washy

True as can be 

To ourselves, what it is 

 

That must be unequivocally 

Stated ad infinitum 

 

Is that we are always 

Lying in wait, ever ready 

 

To lie to ourselves 

Again and again, 

 

Till it all comes out white- 

Washed to no end. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emily's Drone Anywhere And Everywhere

When I first saw that small 

Swallow on 

The telephone wires jabbing 

With its beak into what I first took 

For thin air, I just had 

To zero in for a closer look, 

 

And sure enough there it was, 

That maddening almost imperceptible 

Fly trying to find a chink 

In the bird’s armor and then— 

 

Can you believe it? 

Both flew to where 

I could not see to see. 

 

 

 

 

 

Enigma Sealed And Never Delivered

If, as you yourself so readily admit, 

You’re such an open book, why 

 

Is the one you’ve been working on 

All these years always shut, aye 

 

So far and away 

More than verily,

 

Very kaput. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ball-buster (After Archilochos)

Lo and behold, you 

Of the high- 

 

Blown ways, do you not 

See how low 

 

Your testes have fallen, 

Again? 

 

 

 

 

Keeping Up With The Papadopouloses

Where once there was 

A small windy outhouse 

 

With swatches of news-

Paper nailed to bare brick 

 

Wall next to a gaping 

Hole, now indoors 

 

A cutting-edge vitreous fixture 

And roll of three-ply

 

Ass-wipe unwinding, caressing

Expansive cool 

 

Marble floor. 

 

–-Vassilis Zambaras 

 

 

NB: From the debut issue of Defecation Reflex, which is (according to the editors’ mission statement) “an explosive and absorbing new upfront poetry magazine designed to blow the britches off the asinine mainstream poetry establishment.”

 

Downtrodden

Justice reigns 

Supreme and holding 

Court only when endowed 

 

With the highest 

Esteem towards the lowest 

 

Of the lowly, unless 

The majority of the ‘highly 

 

Esteemed' powers that be

Just happen to be 

 

The lowest of the lowest 

Scum, perhaps you 

 

Don’t agree?