Micah Zevin
Ode to Walls: A Disinformation Campaign
The wall will make us great
climbers with rope (again?)
The walls will actually be fences
which are already there and
dividing us; now they’ll be electrified.
The walls will be painted rainbows
To show it is not actually a wall
But a celebration of diversity,
our differences.
The wall will bring back the jobs
and keep the criminals from
taking them away
while the construction workers
get paid to boil them
The wall will be a mall
where you will buy all products
now made in this country
with your newfound income stream.
The wall is going to be the greatest deal
of greatest deals ever to be made
the biggest and the bestest investment ever
until we ship, crawling up walls will be forever.
The wall will feed us when we are starving
In the desert of our un-shifting lives
Trapped in that swamp of our paradigms.
The wall is a program to make us learn to be
self sufficient and succeed without the
interference of other people, other countries.
The wall is fire and water. One puts the other
out. The wall is stiff and detached and has no
empathy.
The wall is a secret passage out of the simulation
of our lives and into a sanctuary
away from the drugs and the violence
that dominates the news and the world.
The wall is a force field one can hide behind.
The wall is a sheet that covers our faces
so that we cannot be exposed by secret services.
The wall is the call you don’t want to answer
and it won’t stop after it’s built
It will or won’t transform itself into a beautiful
quilt of stars and stripes
it will teach your guilt
how to fight.
Micah Zevin’s poems have appeared in Best American Poetry Blog, Headlock Press, The Otter, Newtown Literary Journal and Blog, Poetry and Politics, Reality Beach, Jokes Review, POST(blank), the American Journal of Poetry and The Tower Journal. He created/curates an open mic/poetry prompt workshop called The Risk of Discovery Reading Series now at Blue Cups in Woodside, Queens, N.Y. every 3rd Tuesday of the month. He holds an MFA in Poetry from The New School. His website is micahzevin.weebly.com.
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