This week in the PEN Poetry Series, guest editor Ben Mirov features a poem by Alli Warren, author of GRINDIN (Lew Gallery, 2012).
Hide the Poor
As clansmen make laws
the country makes heaps
their kings and governors
proclaim franking
to be among
the inalienable rights
They burn youths
with warm wooden pipes
to leech bread from them
to flood the grazing land
to be brought to experience
The painter deemed the most
skillful is asked to depict this
without adulteration
with just one remaining ventricle
His fate is extraordinary
Wherever he ventures the clerks
give him honor
and cooked food
because they like his commodities
some beads
and little bells
and reciprocally
and how
The unimaginable
deemed inevitable
Prophecy is memory
our fate is extraordinary
especially in the mines
but not only there
I’m trying to arrange feathers?
on this ceremonial shield
this idea of coinage?
I’m trying to bring the meat
heads and steel and crafts
to the gospel of justice
I’m delighting in the bursting
of asset bubbles
Not being subjects
they have no desire
No love for moms
Can’t you hear that reeking?
don’t you see the big chain?
don’t you see the big grill?
Call that deflection
in place of action
Send a banger
crying through the streets
The poem first featured in Saginaw.
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