Henry Israeli
Dangerous Thoughts
Many have taken off their white shirts
and are waving them in the air. My eyebrows,
refusing to surrender, fly off like moths into the darkness.
I’ve come so far, I hardly have to talk
or walk anymore. Soon I’ll be able to conduct
my business without leaving my bed. Still,
our very existence is endangered by one lonely rat
chewing on a wire. Turns out nothing so much as the old country
resembles the new country. Turns out there are no ghosts,
just pixelated monsters roaming our homes, our streets,
grinning, mocking, floating between us wherever we go.
It’s all part of an algorithm generated in Tokyo.
They tell me my love for the natural world threatens
the corporate dream of annihilation.
I’ve heard that the most powerful have
secret elevators that can never be found,
that don’t even turn up on GPS, let alone a floor plan.
They don’t need electricity because they run on
pure undiluted ego. I long for the days I was oblivious
as a dandelion. Ever since I woke up on the floor
of a vacant factory I’ve felt myself entangled
in radio waves. I‘m scared of the government’s fear of me
for where do I stand on the most important issues? I don’t stand
for anything, and that’s the point, isn’t it?
It’s 2016, and this is the afterlife.
Henry Israeli’s poetry collections are god’s breath hovering across the waters (Four Way Books: 2016), Praying to the Black Cat (Del Sol: 2010), and New Messiahs (Four Way Books: 2002).