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
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 Muses, an 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.