"Geography," "Unexamined Light," and "Teddy Bear Pundits"
Geography
A friend's geography professor
said from the lectern, "America
not a melting pot
but a garden salad, ingredients thrown in
mixed up, grape tomatoes
liking their red too much
to merge with the lettuce & onions"
& he posed, shooting a laser pointer
eastward across the wall atlas
"Would this satiate the tired
hungry poor?"
the friend, tired hungry poor
sets it on a silver platter
in front of me
also tired hungry poor
I think of Joseph Campbell saying:
"That’s what people are doing
all over the place, dying
for metaphors."
Unexamined Light
A statehouse coheres
from a stupefaction of white
Prefab ambiance Birds
dressed to nines
Epochs bracketed Awash
In/finite tyrannies averted
by diversity of
breakfast sandwiches
Teddy Bear Pundits
Citing exhumed
parchment
Teddy bear pundits
pontificate
with the finality
of a musket
on a wall
"Read ‘em & weep
fly bait
Violets aren't red
enough"
Brian Le Lay is a multidisciplinary writer and sound artist whose work has appeared in places like Peach Mag, BOMBFIRE, and Sledgehammer Lit.
