by David Chorlton
We say the heat is dry
to deflect from its burn.
We call uncontrolled expansion
into the desert growth
suggesting houses are a life form
that flourishes without water.
Words have begun to wear a disguise.
Even the freedom
the president keeps boasting
feels like we’ve drawn the blank tile
in a Scrabble game
only to find all the words on the board
are already complete.
Homeland Insecurity would better name
the office responsible
for patting us down at the airport
and every time I hear the city
has a village plan
I look for rural life
but find only herds of cars
grazing at stop lights.
Free speech zones
make the areas surrounding demonstrations
safe for censorship
while democracy metamorphoses
into five hundred dollar
fundraising meals
where the tables are set
with the bones of victims
from foreign policy deployments.
Terror is the key
of the age, repeated often
to inspire love of country
and to foment war
which is another word for it.
Economics is the science
of loose change trickling down
to a minimum wage
in a working week
with hours based
on a forty-eight hour day.
English only is the language
of thieves
intent on stealing culture
from illegals who smuggle themselves
across borders
that capital is free to cross
without the Minutemen reporting it.
The rich get richer
in this climate
of a hundred degrees
while the poor rest when they can
but it’s only
dry heat.
David Chorlton has spent the last twenty-eight years in Phoenix, trailing English and Austrian roots. His poems have appeared widely in the small presses and he currently anticipates a new book, Waiting for the Quetzal, from March Street Press. It reflects his increasing preoccupation with the natural world.