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| Cartoon by Ann Telnaes |
I had a community read last night. Yes, a good old
sharing of verse and opinions about the state
of things, society, government, the neighbor laying
a pillow outside the Martin Luther King library
on G Street in the capital, to spend the night
al aire libre, in the free air, on the eve of
the 4th of July. Hey, buddy, do you want
a dollar? How can I get you to the shelter?
Are the shelters disappearing with the ticker tape
after the Big Bloated Butchery Bill? Oh, how
easy to go after MAGA, just twist the words
and support the appointments of former
insurrectionists to the Department of Injustice,
to the Uncivil Rights Division, to the god-forsaken
Black House. How unfortunate colors and
their associations. Let’s change the popular
perception. When I from black and he from
white cloud free. Blake said it almost
two hundred and forty years ago,
during the English campaign against
slavery then. Now we see ourselves
shackled by the police state, surveilled,
our social security numbers sold to Palantir.
This is rotten, my friends And yet we
bring out hot dogs and coca cola today
to feast the 249th anniversary of
our independence. How sweet it is.
How bitter. To say Goodbye to All That.
To say, hello concentration camps
in every hamlet. To say, NO. NO. NO.
And yes I pledged my allegiance
to the Constitution when I naturalized
in 1988. I did not sing God Save the King.
Indran Amirthanayagam has just published El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores). Other recent publications include his translation of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books, 2025), Seer (Hanging Loose Press), and The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil). He is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.
