Tuesday, June 21, 2011

DECONSTRUCTED CANARY

by Terry Wright


Extraordinary how
postmodern political debate came back.
Icon vaudeville is over all.  You guys
in old gangster movies regularly get cut
yet remain untroubled by failure.  Rhinestones help
frame you even when the Justice Department
says nothing.  What are you?  Yellow?
Even with that microphone?  You've given
the world sportswear     and strangled parachutes.  You have
a cable show.  Narrate away news
as private histories of lost love trifles     as magical
realist ephemera.

Down in the reddest states
photos and videos of you are tagged
surveillance authorized.  Every uppity canary
not much used to being used must
be caged     then crushed by magicians or gas.


Note: The poem and art are from a series called "Google Poems."  The art works are made first, and the poems are then collaged from Google using search strings of the poems' titles.

Terry Wright teaches creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas.  His most recent chapbook is Graphs (Kairos Editions).  Terry believes his sunrise can beat up yours.

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