At last, the Emperor
has no clothes!
Before, his courtiers
held up one fake
outfit upon another,
each one more ugly
than the last.
But now the nakedness
is complete—
the folds of flesh,
the missing heart,
the feet that refuse
to march, the skin
that crawls.
He becomes himself
utter and alone—
the spawn
of mirrorers
and mercenaries
who now cough
and sneeze
into oblivion.
David Radavich's latest narrative collection America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019) is a companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007). Recent lyric volumes are Middle-East Mezze (2011), The Countries We Live In (2014), and the forthcoming Here's Plenty (2020).
