by Ron Riekki
If I don’t get elected,
it’s going to be a bloodbath…
It’s going to be a bloodbath
for the country.
Bloodbath—coined in 1867.
1867—the transatlantic slave trade
“ends.” Blood red state said,
“The candidate is candid,” but did
you realize he’s inciting another
insurrection, an opposite of Resurrection
with Easter coming up, playing possum,
a country in toxic immobility, a wrath,
a hoodwink, a flood path we walked,
knee-deep, after the storm, the sewage,
age 18, me and a friend, Boston, cars
drowned. “It already is a bloodbath,”
she says. Adds, “And we’ve already lost.”
There’s a birdbath outside my window,
Dearborn, no birds, no deer, no births,
a friend having a miscarriage. There’s
a smell outside like hell outside, the factories
in the not-so-distant distance greying the sky
violently, no insight, no sun in sight, buried
by clouds, or smoke, or both. “It’s going to be
a bloodbath,” my ex- says, choked on the words,
mocks. The clock ticks in the other room, or
is that water dripping in the shower? A madness.
Blathering on and on on the TV. We listen. Scared.
“He looks like a Star Wars villain.” “Children
are watching this.” “I hope not.” “He has cash
in his blood.” Bloodbath dumbass scumbags
aftermath sociopath car-crash collapse. “I always
imagine him with a Hitler mustache.” Fat naps.
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”—Plath.
Gasps. Gaps. I read a story about Roman Polanski
walking onto the set of Macbeth that he was directing.
the set designer supposed to be filling the room with blood, but
Polanski looked, said, “It’s not enough.” They added more.
“It’s not enough.” They added more blood. He said it wasn’t
enough. He said he was there, had seen it; it wasn’t enough
blood. Manson murderers targeted Polanski’s home. He’d seen.
“More blood,” he said, “It’s not enough.” My ex-: “How is he
even running again? How is this happening?” It’s a repetition.
I was in Macbeth once. We’d say the name of the play, didn’t
care about the curse. The boy who played The Boy in the play
killed himself, the week of previews. Macduff’s son. The egg.
He jumped off a bluff. Landed in a field. Not found for a week.
I was Macduff. I was bad. I was young. I was not ready for
the role. I feel like that now. The bad reviews, of me, at least.
My family, slaughtered. The Boy, a friend of mine. The fall.
At the end, the decapitated head. The death. The wooden stage.
The poor attendance. The bad politics, even back then. Poverty
in my mining hometown. My boyhood. How I stood on stage
after it was done, the place empty, and from the back of our
theater, I saw The Boy, my friend, emerge from the shadows,
and I swear to God, how he appeared, dead, but still there, stepping
out, of the silence, the madness of that role, the method acting
I tried to do, failed, succeeded, both, a good attempt, a good
failure, and then him, here, there, in front of me, in the dark-
light, this friend, ended, how he stood there, looking at me,
and I froze, flecks of blood on his face—no, his face only
blood, and his mouth opened, and he stepped back, and he
was gone. And my ex- leaves the room. And I turn off
the volume on the television. And the Presidential candid-
ate stood there, stands there, his teeth like ghosts, ghost-like teeth,
his hat like hate, his arterial cap, the horror of this country,
the terror of this moment, the repetition of it all, how I’ve
seen this same snippet, comment, from him, already thirteen
times today, and the room is silent, and I turn my head and
look to the right, a room that we didn’t know until we’d
already paid the rent, signed the lease, but we’d found on-
line that someone had killed himself in this apartment, our
apartment, where we lived; of course, it happens, they don’t tell you,
you move in, find out, stumble on it. And I looked into the room.
Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).