In addition to my regular Friday book review and Sunday weekly newsletter, I am introducing a Wednesday post for Fall 2022. Wednesday posts will contain the creative writing I’ve published elsewhere, whether in a now unused Medium account or in literary journals that have either vanished or that paywalled my work years ago, as well as some unpublished work.
[An unpublished poem from a notebook. I don’t remember when I wrote it, but it’s linked more to a secular epoch than to any one year or even decade.]
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
1. Worker Theodicy
We are unmaking the steppe.
We are remaking the steppe.
We will place a silver citadel here,
Our thousand strong arms like the word of God.
God always was our thousand strong arms,
Silver-veined with citadels,
That blocked us, clogged us, choked us with their force,
Until the sympathetic magic of the state
Dealt one great blow to end all blows,
And the silver flowed out of our veins.
2. Buyer Theodicy
Those girls onscreen look just like me!
A liquid mirror winds through the world:
It redeems everything it sees.
I killed myself the other day
Because I couldn’t stand the silence
On the bus and on the street.
They tipped my casket into the mirror,
A burial at sea.
It silvered and it sang,
And everybody cheered.
Even the President wiped away a tear.
3. Owner Theodicy
We are claiming the land. We are naming the land. If it doesn’t count, we throw it out. If you want to count, Just look in this glass. Our dreams are ours, And so are yours, And so are your thousand strong arms. Would you like them redeemed? We hold the deed. We live on the map. Its leaves don’t rot.