What Rough Beast | Poem for June 22, 2017

Eileen Tabios
From The Ashbery Riff-Offs
—where each poem begins with 1 or 1-2 lines from “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by John Ashbery

Witnessed in the Convex Mirror: Vice

We have seen the city; it is the gibbous
mirrored eye of an insect. All things unfold
without accuracy. City slickers never lack
for new myths to inflict on the unsuspecting
There’s an angle waiting to entangle our
intentions. Look there at that street corner:
a puff of smoke from the last cigarette
smoker on the planet. Or so he proclaims
doffing his fedora. But on the other side
of the planet, my grandfather is stripping
green, wide leaves from his tobacco
fields. They will dry to brown in one of
the many shanties dotting the 30 hectares
he sacrificed to acquire. He and his gum-
teethed cronies agree under the shade
of a mango tree where they take their
lunch break of rice and smoked fish
“Demand never abates for vice, even
what will kill its patron.” In the capital
of his country, another student falls
to the street, her tattered books spilling
to the nearby gutter, the plaid skirt
of her school uniform rising to reveal
newly-punctured wounds, roses blossom
-ing from her tiny limbs—their President
understands creating a war solidifies
power, even if it’s a domestic drug war
helmed by beer-bellied men with gibbous
eyes, too incompetent to shoot straight

 

Eileen R. Tabios has released about 50 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in eight countries and cyberspace. Her most recent include The Opposite of Claustrophobia (Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, 2017) and Amnesia: Somebody’s Memoir (Black Radish Books, 2016). Forthcoming poetry collections include Mantattan: An Archaeology (Paloma Press, 2017). Inventor of the poetry form “hay(na)ku,” her poetry has been translated into eight languages. She also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 12 anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays as well as served as editor or guest editor for various literary journals. More information is available at eileenrtabios.com.

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