Benjamin Paloff

Imperial Burlesque

If the prime movers—honor, vengeance, pleasure. Love?
Money.—embroil me in the poetics of accusation—not necessarily
a bad thing, but I’m embroiled—and every so often I imagine myself
how a bill becomes a law, the first man convicted of space murder,
the professor of undeclared (exceptionalism’s sorry solitude
being brighter than nature’s disinfectant, and if not, well,
there’s really no ifs about it: countless are the planets
that will never amount to anything, and in China there’s a village
where everyone has your name, not far, not at all far
from the one where everyone has mine)—
then, not to discount tradition—unless you believe
in a devil leading us unto falseness or idolatry,
or that the world won’t end, as it has to eventually—
wouldn’t to forego such gifts as move me be
a bizarre affront to everything we stand for?

Imperial Burlesque

Why is it that whenever my part finally gets to me
and I have to tell it, I’m always alone
in a second-class compartment with the very man
I’m running from, both of us in disguise,
only his so much more convincing than mine,
which is washed away by the rocking,
the waves of iambs and trochees bent on telling
everyone who has ever traveled by rail
just how bad a quarto I’ve been and am?

Because, he says, it is not
until you can confirm digital transfer
that you will slake or dilate the bougie thirst.
The Internet has already robbed the exotic
from every bird, dancer or otherwise.
Not that all flowers look the same, but
only quantity justifies phylogeny: peach, apricot,
new blossom soon to find its equal in a stranger.
We don’t see strangers. All we see is customers.

Concealed carry, false features, leather gloves,
dispatches, predictable violence. If we’re not spies, why
do we spend so much time pretending we’re spies?

The Three Christs of Ypsilanti

Insofar as you clearly share

Pharaoh’s unhealthy fascination

with cats, Lord,

it’s a good thing

you cannot slap a copyright

on titles.

Another year, another

red army, perplexity expressed

in the question-non-question:

Who is to blame? It was not I

who set the bed bugs marching

on our children, though it was I

who defined what was right

according to what I’d thought

you’d done. Does that make me

a bad husband or father?  

Who can say no to a hard night

of adoring?

*

We keep meddling with The Savior,

and through The Savior

we have a lot of blood on our hands

that we’d prefer not to think about.

It’s true, of course, that The Savior

never seems to get it together

and has sent millions of disciples

around the world, mostly

to the Americas. They are The Savior’s

largest source of income.

The Savior holds elections,

but these have often been sorry affairs.

The Savior used to have a Commission

on the Truth, but no more.

*

Like any acquiescent tyrant

elevated wherever books are sold, 

like a tachometer or the Ghost

of Christmas Yet to Come,

my sole value is in where I point.

Like the Lincoln in the Lincoln

Memorial on currency that costs

more than it’s worth, I am absent

and always close. Like whomever you hail

at the crosswalk, I am your brother.

Like whenever you open your mouth,

I am a concert.