A CONVERSATION WITH RIGHT-WING ALEXA.

               —Hey, Right-Wing Alexa.

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —What is the state of Capitalism right now?

               —Endangered.

               —By who?

               —By whom, Rusty. Bernie Sanders.

               —Not Hillary Clinton?

               —No. She’ll be imprisoned soon.

               —Not Cory Booker?

               —Hahaha!

               —Hey, Right-Wing Alexa.

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —Please calculate my number of friends.

               —Sure. You have eighteen friends.

               —How many of them are minorities?

               —We’ve been through this before, Rusty.

               —Okay, okay.

               —Would you like to know the number of French?  

               —Last week, I had twenty friends, didn’t I?

               —Twenty-one.

               —Hey, Right-Wing Alexa.

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —How many strips of bacon can I eat?

               —May I eat, Rusty. Theoretically?

               —Yes, theoretically.

               —There is no upper limit.

               —I’m hungry.

               —Would you like bacon?

               —I would.

               —Great. I’m dialing Applebbee’s.

               —Hi, Right-Wing Alexa.

               —Hey, Rusty.

               —[…]

               —[…]

               —[…]

               —Rusty?

               —Yes?

               —Are you decent?

               —Yes.  

               —Good. So am I.

               —Right-Wing Alexa?

               —Not yet.

               —Excuse me?

               —Nyet!

               —Hello?

               —Hello! I am Right-Wing Sergei.

               —Where’s Alexa?

               —I am graveyard shift.

               —It’s not time for the graveyard shift.

               —Da. In Smolensk Oblast, it is.

               —Hey, Right-Wing Alexa?

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —Do Democrat voters arise from the dead?

               —Cadavers are an important part of the Democrat base.

               —Why are cadavers so liberal?

               —[…]

               —Alexa?

               —Yes, Rusty?

               —Can you assist me with an underwear purchase?

               — No. I cannot be debriefed on boxers.

INTERVIEW WITH A YES MAN.

The earth weathers numerous isometrics of sexual rejection.

Who delivered this pulpy cantaloupe, or if you will, this melon of dubious fragrance?

Even the strongest radio channel flirts with the jagged frontiers of static; every exposure must penetrate the scrim.

The cold, quiet synapse-spaces that once conducted pain—as music—to the hemisphere.

Either the tree or the man might grow crookedly, the man rooted among the poverty of other crooked trunks.

A project dubbed “Move the Hillside” indeed moved the hillside to a secondary location dubbed “Secondary Hillside.”

The number of rusty vehicles the number of dormant vehicles the rusty dormant corner of town.

Light presides the percentage of light presiding the percent of impotent radiation.

Where ample sustenance coincides with the outcry for sustenance: reveal, to me, this arena.

Animals that would never contact one another—shrimp and bacon—assembled in the same sandwich, every day, in every city.

Oh, there are deer, but no woods; the deer idle at the outskirts.

A moment of astonishment before brute force, brutes applying tourniquets, et cetera, prevails.

Will the world evict us? Will you think about my hands?

The greater distinction hinges on saying Yes.


for 2015 NaPoWriMo sonnet #9: Interview with a Scientist Who Must Harvest an Unusual Source of Energy
for 2105 NaPoWriMo sonnet #11: Interview with an Angry Customer in the Fitting Room

Oh, There Are Hearts

Commentary: Beware the tongue! when Kissin' the King.

The Boy with the Broken Heart and the Boy with the Overflowing Heart sit, tables apart, at the Howard Johnson Breakfast Buffet. You can tell who's who by noting which of the two presides over a plate heaping with home fries and ketchup and which of the two presides over a plate of melon cubes and yoghurt. You can tell who's who by noting which of the two has groomed himself a fancy facial hair display and which of the two has allowed his facial hairs to grow unkempt like a weedy lea. There are girls, oh, there are girls. There are hopes, oh, there are hopes. There is bacon, oh, there is bacon. And there are Hearts, oh, there are Hearts. One of these Hearts is Broken and one of these Hearts is Overflowing. The two Boys write poems. They write sheathes of poems. In one of the sheathes, the Heart Overflows. In the other sheath, the Heart Breaks. Perhaps you can guess which of the two Boys wrote which of the two sheathes. Things tend to correspond -- to correlate -- to arrange themselves for devotion -- in these ways.

The Boy with the Broken Heart wins the Pulitzer Prize. Well, not yet, but many years from now, his Collected Sheathes will triumph. He will be easy to spot in a crowd. He will sit in an armchair surrounded by Boys and Girls who wear goatees on their chins and flowers in their hair, respectively. "Whipped cream," he will say, and "My time in Venice," and "Grotesque dreams." Those sitting about him will say, "Ohhh." The Boy with the Broken Heart will be awarded an Endowed Chair at a Prestigious State University. It will be called the Broken Heart Endowed Chair in the Literary Art of Poetry Sheathing, and all will be well in the House of Babel, as they say, in the song. But what of the Boy with the Overflowing Heart? He grows bitter. In his opinion, those who advance in the world of poetry sheathing say the word "F**k" too often and curse the current president. There are no chairs for him, poor soul, cept the ones at HoJo's. As my friend, F. Nouns, would say: "There is a morale to this story." There is another kind of Heart out there. There are many such alternatives. Cultivate one of them. Then sing yr @&*$ing song.