Andrei Codrescu

Summer 2024 | Poetry

Two Poems

so what is political poetry?

 

rhetoric refusing its prior premise?

a proud being asking for what's not his?

a penniless libertarian at the free library?

the ceo who is an echo of himself?

the exceptionalist in norm core shorts?

the ghost bug squished on the glass plate?

socialism in its verbal youth?

cosmogony drafted from metaphors of justice?

executives of the freedom to loiter?

accidental rhymes in the park of headless statues?

dusty podiums and second-hand microphones?

boredom wearing clothes from the movies?

hearts stirred with icecream sticks of first love?

toy guns pointed at robots with pocket nukes?

neruda mixing vodka with rum at the congress bar?

i could go on but I have been left alone in the car

  

 

 

parachute song

 

all my life I fought with capitals

while living in them

 

the best human gift is perspective

it’s also the worst

when calling for a closeup

 

it is a gift only when it employs

minimal distance between

what you see and what looks back

 

we have a school for teaching

appropriate distance

it’s called a slum a favella

 

how long do I have to stay away

 

the circumstance is a circus stance

without circus the city is a limp gag

 

with the circus you can take a stance

my clown but you will rarely get paid

Andrei Codrescu (codrescu..com) is a poet, novelist, essayist and screenwriter. His books include “The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess” (Princeton University Press). “The Disappearance of the Outside” (Addison-Wesley) and “So Recently Rent a World” Selected and New Poems” (Coffee House). He edited Exquisite Corpse, a Journal of Books & Ideas,” (corpse.org), was a senior commentator on NPR (NPR.org/Codrescu) and MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative literature at LSU. He lives in Brooklyn.

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