03.22.2019
Weekly poem on Trump Presidency
MATT BIALER
Surveillance
Men in jumper suits break into my house
Force a metal mask over my face
A baboon head riddled with lights and raw circuitry
Can’t breathe My eyes sting I hear animal wails
Now I am constantly under surveillance
For a crime I didn’t yet commit
Two dark SUVs parked in front
Monitors, headsets, infrared, chips
I wish I knew what terrible thing I will perpetrate
Maybe I can help On TV I see they are making arrests
Sleeper cells, murderers Sweeps through office buildings
Frogmen in the river searching for evidence
Implants in my head sample, image, probe
Looking for the exact moment the plot will hatch
I try to think of only agreeable things The zoo
With my wife and daughter Behind the cage
Spider monkeys with armbands Jumping in the trees, grooming
I sit alone at an empty outdoor café Government vehicles follow
I remember the Probocis monkeys in the mangrove swamp
Swimming with their infants on their hips My daughter pointing, laughing
Tonight I dream a troop of Howler monkeys fashion deadly spears
From sticks Peeling back the bark Sharpening the ends
Their faces half-amphibian I can hear the sirens
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Matt Bialer is the author of 16 collections of poetry ASCENT and WONDER WEAVERS (Bizarro Pulp Press (JournalStone), FORMATION (Weirdo Magnet), DISTANT SHORES (Villipede Publicatons), THE VALLEY OF THE RIGHT and THIRD EYE OF THE INNER LIGHT (Leaky Boot Press). His poems have appeared in many print and on- line journals including Retort, Le Zaporogue, Green Mountains Review, Gobbet, Forklift Ohio and H_NGM_N. In addition, Matt is an acclaimed black and white street photographer who has exhibited his work widely. Some of his images are in the permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of the City of New York and The New York Public Library. He is also an accomplished watercolor landscape painter with work in many private collections.
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illustration: anna_croc01