Tuesday, January 23, 2024

METAMORPHOSIS

by Imogen Arate




The White House is campaigning to spin Biden’s support for Israel’s war while actively facilitating the slaughter. —The Intercept, January 17, 2024



Bid farewell in the rearview
the world you invented

A paper house unfurls
oil-slicked plumes 
as flags of surrender 

The chartreuse shutters
you proudly claimed
the victory of your refinement
curl to the lap of an inferno
nursed on sated falsehoods

And the Astroturf spits
its faux blades onto
the white pickets still
defending your illusions 

What aftertaste regurgitates now 
of the celebratory bubblies imbibed 
What terroir offers the graves 
of those you condemned

Limp now into a future that 
your past has trampled 

Let your nostrils collect the iron 
of dried blood drained to solidify 
the quicksand swallowing your flailing 
proclamations of pristine intentions


Imogen Arate is an Asian-American poet in search of hope: that humanity will overcome our self-destructive tendencies to work together against the onslaught of the climate crisis. She's also the Executive Director of Poets and Musesan award-winning multimedia platform that has featured diverse contemporary poetic voices from around the globe. She believes that we will only be able to value lives equally when we lend our ears and hearts to the life stories of those we don't readily recognize as our kin.