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.