The Dictator's Radio

the coffin that sleep contained
a car buzzes by like its eyes are closed

i remember the obvious
i hear something like a broadcast voice
i remember the dream last night
that told me to wake up
that predicted this morning in terrifying clarity

my eyes ache from the shrill light of dawn

    eyes drift down the sidewalk over
    paper cups of coffee    let’s hope
    that bloodshot eyes will remember themselves

    the dictator’s radio hangs from your ears

    each step cold    as if made in ice water
    your shoes coffins    your destination frozen

from Trump Tics (2020)

Donald's Pot Luck

donald trump
took a bag of poisoned potato chips
to the potluck

the bottoms of his shoes
sucked all the colors out of the carpet
making it as white
as a k k k hood

meanwhile his minions
added a layer of nazi-made bricks
to the walls of the house

now that i’m here he pronounced
this event is yuge
everybody is happy

but he was the only one there
because everyone else had fled
as the bricks leaned inward
and even the roof
he’d held up with hot air
started to collapse

from Trump Tics (2020)

Astronomer of Truth

it comes every day
the inexact night
when the stars cluster more approximately
than the constellations they taught you to see

other days you think you remember
as so much different from this one
and the dog down the street should have told you
but someone    maybe him
has been moving his bones around
to where that future won’t find them

your teachers should have told you
your apple should have told you
the flute that leads the dawn should have told you

the stars themselves should have told you
they’re all liars    and now you’re looking at them
wondering what they have to teach you next

from Trump Tics (2020)

Plea

almost toxic
the kind of stuff taxis roll by
my lawn is covered in make believe right now

statue leans meaningfully
on her hand as trucks roll past her

tires that have been everywhere
lend scent to a dog’s sense of meaning

    in the middle of all this there’s a dictator
    who is so evil and powerful that he cannot
    be taken as anything but literal
    he lives in a mansion three thousand miles from here
    but even his grin affects everything
        to deny this is to chance
        shortening your life
        and everyone else’s 
        by decades

from Trump Tics (2020)

Outside the Gas Station

last night i dreamt
that i was leaning up against a gas station wall
the stars spun themselves into a pattern
that formed the skeleton of piltdown man

i felt all of my energy    driven out of my veins
like blood seeking refuge in nothingness

the new sky stood almost fictional
like the moment between pulses 
when you feel the possibility of death

    bones    even bones that never existed
    even bones described as ancestral and sacred
    by the mouth of a petty dictator
    the stars seemed dried as dessicated wood
    i wonder if my very own bones still glisten
    if the world still pumps alive outside of sleep

from Trump Tics (2020)

His Welcoming Smile

when the fat dictator smiles
why do we all feel like skeletons
gathered around a desolate fire
that will gradually dry
the last of life from us?

from Trump Tics (2020)

Catullus Thinks of Donald Trump

"Spaniards/ use their morning urine/ for tooth wash." -- Catullus

it doesn’t bother me at all
that you clean your teeth
with piss as orange as your hair

    rome is a republic

clodia right now sits watching the street
waiting for me
by a window on the second floor of her husband’s mansion
she does not think of you

    rome is a republic

here    settled in my favorite seat
in an outdoor theater watching an awful play
about gods i barely believe in
i do not believe in you either
o one of puffy eyes and hair of rotted straw
that would shame a wild animal
or even a barbarian    the true order of things
i do believe in that   precludes you
who would turn crowds mindless enough to riot
before your games and after you came to power
who think that the world is made for yourself
while even my loves    all of them
do not think it is made for me

so here i am    watching some idiot on the theatre floor
instead of writing love poems to my clodia
she who may be the one who murders me
before i’m thirty    before the name caesar
is anything but a family name
before anyone with orange skin and hair
of a texture that almost defines disease
seeks by his presence to defame the name
of anyone from any old roman family

    rome is a republic

from Trump Tics (2020)

Within Sight

i wonder how to keep alive
in political fogs like this

try the bright eyes
within clouds

you need to remember
your own bright eyes

that they can live like fire in grief
for you to be able to see

from Trump Tics (2020)

The Election of Death

how could you even
pretend you had life on your mind
when you voted for this guy?

atmosphere that is deep and inscrutable 
humidity of your own anger
your own tears

from Trump Tics (2020)

Post-Election Fog 2024

windows blindfolded
waiting for the execution

even the sky is closed in fog

the music on the radio
is turned so low
that no notes can get through

there was an election
light lost
a ball of dead lead
sits unsighted
where there used to be sun

A version of this poem appeared in Trump Tics (2020)