FIVE POEMS || YASH SEYEDBAGHERI

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​Dear Citizen

dear citizen,
you drank white wine for lunch,
while sneezing. congratulations
on superfluous snot sentences, while
Cheetos make America hate again
 
you took a monster sized dump, too
congratulations, such significance
to souls separated at the borders,
children of abuse. light slams
against walls Mexico won’t pay for
 
dear citizen,
you liked a post from Congressman X or Y,
inequality while you drove your BMW,
sneered at sobbing inequity in Dodge Stratuses.
so much effort to like, but to get out
to feel, to fight,
save that for tomorrows perpetually procrastinated
 
and you posted about the sandwiches
underwear you wore
lace lavender, briefs, nonetheless
how you smelled of sweat
while blood-red MAGA caps rose into the sky
 
dear citizen,
take off the underwear
stop drinking the wine
write about the bitterness, the calluses
souls waiting for scapegoat time
but you drank white wine
congratulations
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Tweeting Sorrow​
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​I’m tweeting coronavirus statistics on the toilet
older sister’s handling corpses in overcrowded fields
how do you confront fucking grief? I’m sorry, motherfucker? It’ll get better?
I could go tell death jokes, corpse jokes, pretend to smile
but thank God for toilets. it’s hard to get up.             
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 Truth
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​You think your truth
is proclaimed in electronic glow
of unsterilized phones, words like dissection, intersection, problematic, paradigm
and likes, bandied while you tweet from a Starbucks bathroom
and corpse statistics rise. But it’s all right. You just had a twelve-dollar latte
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​Dear YouTube
 

I got 68 likes
why not 69?
I just quoted Robert Downey Jr
going full retard in appalling Tropic Thunder satirical parlance
but most importantly
I said that Bad Santa brought me
 
to Chopin
and vampires brought me to Debussy
not everyone can hear Downey Jr
doing a black accent, whatever that is
and after all deaf people are X percent of Y viewers on YouTube
and I just want people to like Chopin and Debussy
 
but Bad Santa and vampires even more
even the poor, dear, deaf people
so why not give me one more like
and let it be a sexy 69
although 420 likes
would be a blaze of glory
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Funeral March For Mendacity
 

Funeral March For A Marionette plays,
while I try to write beauty into the moonlight
but store another lecture
from waddling father who looks like the Penguin
and walks beside Lady Mendacity
 
(I just want to sleep on the moon and shadows)
 
clarinet wails lavender insistence
truth, truth, she proclaims
strings rumble brown and black
Lady Mendacity purrs in her loose purple gown, father proclaiming
truth is a waste, use people, life’s a jungle, no one cares about you but me
 
(for the record, he’s got a lawsuit for assault, fucks left and right, and is on the cusp of losing position)
 
while Lady Mendacity
whispers new grievances,
seducing his mustache
you’re too artistic, he growls, serve your father, give up your time
while triangles tinkle with silver sorrow
 
(he’s his own art form, angrily proclaiming himself saintly, calm, transcending the self)
 
clarinet wails lavender truth
while Lady Mendacity tries to keep her garments on
bassoon turns gray and grim
a father clings to naked Lady Mendacity
but naked is just another object to him
 
(breasts, buttocks, all disposable to the saintly father)
 
I laugh
a bassoon’s grim laugh
battering the bullshit
heave, heave,
he waddles, even while he trips
 
(and Lady Mendacity tries to right her garments. was she ever truthful?)
 
but I ready myself again
the clarinets weep
the bassoons boom
the father finds a new mendacious grievance
waddling. the Lady surrenders garments
 
(logic is more and more inconvenient)
 
I can’t cry
so I laugh
while the clarinet croons lavender truth louder and louder


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