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10 Apr: "Warm Life" by Garrett Caples

 
       for Bill Berkson & Khaled al-Assad
the union president’s dead
& they won’t let transgender
 
people pee in north carolina
& here i’m complaining about
 
climbing the mountain again
the mountain’ll always remain
 
if i’m lucky, to keep me from
sucking & only a king mule will
 
do. humbled by bill as he goes
through the business of staying
 
alive with dignified unconcern. i
don’t deserve him, have no zen
 
no dasein, just half-a-dozen self
-inflicted wounds i’m expected
 
to grin & bear & like robert
plant, i do. it’s like i’m in
 
a rembrandt or something
holding testtubes to the sun
 
to read my urine specimens &
—spoiler alert—i’m trigger sad
 
checked my email mid-poem
so of course its bad news
 
the ancient city is practically
gone, palmyra, palmyra
 
at least i still have bill
here in isis usa

2 comments:

  1. Mourning within contextual perspective...

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  2. I was just thinking about this yesterday reading Americanah. Then Helen and I talked about depression a little.

    The line between unsatified and depressed. I always find it funny that depression seems more of a priviliedged illness (there is probably research on that). The narrator is not dying but still has these self inflected wounds. If you think you have problems look around.

    I wouldn''t have ever got that al-Assad Isis reference without the author commentary. I'll add at least one of Bill Barkson's poems for this month.

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