What Rough Beast | Poem for July 28, 2018

Cody Walker
Four Short Poems

1. DOJ Website

Your Sessions has expired from inactivity.
Your Sessions has timed out for security purposes while you were away . . . let’s try this again.
Your Sessions has timed out to protect your investigation from unauthorized access.
Please close your investigation and start over.

2. Outtakes from the Piss Tape

Name Trump’s favorite Klansman.

The Grand Whizzer.

Favorite nationality?

European.

Again, so everyone gets it?

European on the bed.

3. Defense Secretaries: A Succession

And James Mattis begat Russ Westbrook, and Russ Westbrook begat a short-order cook, and a short-order cook (who was also a grifter) begat a shapeshifter, and a shapeshifter begat a crumpled ball of paper.

4. Mad Lurch to the Left

He thought he saw Morticia Addams
Snap a pod of peas:
He looked again, and found it was
Impeachment News! I tease.
But jump ahead six months from now—
And pass the popcorn, please.

 

 

Cody Walker‘s most recent poetry collection is The Trumpiad (Waywiser, 2017). (The book doubles as an ACLU fundraiser.) He’s also the author of two earlier collections: The Self-Styled No-Child (Waywiser, 2016) and Shuffle and Breakdown (Waywiser, 2008). His work appears in The New York Times MagazineSlate, and The Best American Poetry (2015 and 2007). He teaches English at the University of Michigan and co-directs the Bear River Writers’ Conference.

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