by Catherine McGuire
The trailer in Revelations, as all trailers do,
pulled out the hot bits, the big scenes -
and we were fooled into thinking
it would be one big Bang finale.
But no. You’d think we’d realize
how theater works.
This is a made-for-tv-drama series
drawn out over a lifetime or two;
this is a full-course dinner
of crow and old hats.
The four Ninja Horsemen sneak
through dark with masks and blackened tools;
dismount and do more damage on foot.
In normal garb, Famine swathes the usual
villages and towns, but covers its tracks
with news reports of CARE packages dropped
like manna. It goes upscale as anorexia
becomes the ultimate fashion goal,
it dopplegangs as empty calories
slowly infiltrating potbellied kids
who play World of War
until only their thumbs have muscles.
War calls itself “unrest” and harvests
scores in villages, thousands in town
then bolts before it can be Formally Declared.
Death of course is hard to disguise -
but data is an awesome camoflage: statistics
like swarms of flies on carrion fog the air
smudge the actual count, the real cull.
And Disease…well… hold on to your snouts,
my little piggies -- here we go…
An award-winning poet, Catherine McGuire has been published online, in many wide- and small-circulation print magazines, and overseas in the past two decades. More than 100 poems have appeared in publications including MReview, Portland Lights Anthology, HazMat Review, Tapjoe and Adagio. She has published a chapbook, Joy Into Stillness: Seasons of Lake Quinault and is newsletter editor of Oregon State Poetry Association.
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