Median Witness

I eke out a vampire’s existence at present, awake in
the indigo velvet of night, a witness to death
and destruction, alluvial plumes. The gingkoes birth fans
of flame and black smokescreens. I skinny-dip in
crumbed memories and mistakes of record-keeping.
Everything is Orientalized in the high ridge of the score,
duduk and Desi drums paraded as Arab-indigenous.
In Poland, the plane goes down over forest,
and the President and his Cabinet transform into mist.
Now, hegemonic caesura is obscured with rote verse;
like fragments of stardust tar-pitting my veins,
this buckshot of condescension accelerates Westward.
Lambs bound and stumbling, running three-legged races.
GoFundMes to bribe the guards of the abattoir.
Missiles of disingenuous precision die for love
and kiss until their lips are raw. Hope lies across the border,
a flight into Egypt if only they can pay, but with my thirty
silver spent already I doom them all to biochemical rape.
Pour into my blood a little of your heat,
you beautiful, Rubenesque god of destruction:
I feed when you feed on the blood and the marrow,
taking their screams and their oil as sustenance. Digital
evidence is preserved and debased, decried and erased.
The Orient is commodified and sold piecemeal, kosher.
Rearranging paint cans while the whole vessel is scuttled.
In Iran, the helicopter goes down into mist,
and the President and his aides are reborn as long shadows.
The arrest warrants are only for leaves on the tree,
we must attack the root of the problem.
We are trying to live, though we don’t know why anymore.
Flour and hope of escape sustain, even when both are miserly
wrought. This tarnished brass key will unlock the future.
Pour into my blood a little of your heat,
Gazan Sun, O Palestinian Sun.


Published by About Place Journal, official literary journal of the Black Earth Institute, Oct. 2024 issue.
Note: The title is a pun on the term "median voter".
Sources of Quotations:
--Lines 19, 33: Atlas, Natacha, “Soleil d’Egypte.” Ayeshteni, 2001. Translated from the original French.
--Line 30: Anonymous Gazan mother, paraphrased.

---Posted here 10/06/2024