ALAN BRITT

POLITICAL WIND

Clank! Washcloths in places they don't
belong, whistling from a Belle Glade hallway
marble stained with annual losses required
to pave this alligator infested suburban alley
with ranchers fit for middle management
lusting pool, patio matching tiles & stainless
grill blazing like afternoon sun 12 hours
but dressing as though late for a gathering,
a botched quorum, but every bit as earnest
as pot growing, slave owning George the First,
not the only George we'll celebrate in our time,
as if, as if, as if an ibis with curved logic limps
across a parking lot littered with mod shops,
new mod, not old, Never . . . I sense . . . the
less, she said that ship sailing—they punched
my ticket, but I missed the boat when I volunteered
as cook, maid & domestic servant in the bedroom;
the ibis bubbles straw electricity into its
clam lips . . . the news isn't good, but uncle
lobster in his merlot finest takes the coliseum
by storm . . . should've seen it coming—
daughter number one slammed at Sonic
by County Cab en route not cab but black
magic cab was born from in the first, only
to be sued by that soulless driver praying for
his quasi-Christian family to keep a shingled
roof, two-person kitchen & 46" LED HDTV
haunting electric fireplace, fumbling for
a comb, fumbling for a reason, fumbling for
a reason for the comb in this extreme quantum
news headline about each of us having multiple
selves in our time but not within our space.
Turns out space is included. Time & space.


                  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★


Van Morrison appears in bruised light to
canter "T B Sheets" . . . much more than
you expected & more than fundraisers dumped
into pizza garbage cans then shoveled down
the scorpion throats of government trucks,
those dreaded dragons with bellies of flesh
eating beetles bleaching the sidewalks of
Manhattan, Detroit, Miami Beach, KC-K
& KC-MO in feral unison. Notwithstanding,
like neon moths attracted to gas lamps, do
you believe they were blessed eons ago during
Jesus’ private dip at the local pond, in search
of refuge, mercy, in those days, mercy from
being pounded onto a wooden frame & left
for dead?

---Alan Britt

In August 2015 Alan Britt was invited by the Ecuadorian House of Culture Benjamín Carrión in Quito, Ecuador for the first cultural exchange of poets between Ecuador and the United States. During his visit he did TV, radio and newspaper interviews gave presentations and read poetry in Quito, Otavalo, Ambatto, Guayaquil and Guaranda, plus the international literary conference sponsored by La hermandad de las palabras 2015 in Babahoyo. Library of Congress Interview: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/media/avfiles/poet-poem-alan-britt.mp3