Poem-A-Day #46 : The 46th Day

The 46th Day

A meteor explodes over Russia
& the USS Maine explodes
                                             sinking to the bottom of Havana Harbour
                                   & the United States goes to war with Spain

                         & it is
                               the largest object to invade the planet
                    since the last meteor that exploded over Russia

In Milwaukee
Jeffery Dahmer goes to prison for life
                              & he does die there his body pulped by a 20 inch pipe

& somewhere Galileo & Chris Farley are born & Owen Willans Richardson dies
                    his theory transmits the heat from static shock
                              to meteor
                                   to the Maine's decks

To the center of your eye
umbilical

to this small dark room in Santa Fe

          where you tell me you are leaving us

                    where there is stop in the spin of the earth

                              where the coyotes wait outside the gates to scrap

Immunity

Immunity (Nikita Krushchev Visits the US 1959) 9/15

Nikita – you seem to not care about much

Computers don’t wow you – and the trip

to Disneyland was meant to be the highlight

What do you take back from this trip – what

is learnt from America – Self-serve cafeterias

and a supermarket in San Francisco?

Oh Nikita – did you run into Ginsberg?

I’m sure the Soviets will love self-service

and markets are a wonderful thing – but

the brink of change is only a few years away

It doesn’t matter what groceries you fondled

and I’m tired of knowing what foods are

bought anyway –

Such queer things – arms and un-arms

Nikita – would you have bought a mouse hat?

Carried it back to Moscow and shown the people

your name in gold thread?