on the trail of a manticore's spore (on the day before another oarless or)

so Alfonso just bumped into the knob
that tunes up the tv,
as an anxious voice admonished us
to not turn "our nation"
over to the "crazy radical left."

as if anything approaching a left
could possibly exist
in reality's homeland.

as if a different humanitied wind
could even quiver
the relentless mainstreamed sway

of consumptive presumption's
patriot plated racist placist
indigenous erasist
rooted dismal failure
to comprehend a worldly view,

blared by the duelling
propaganda outlets,

mined by the right and whiter
firmamenting parties.

they may as well be warning us
about kindness taking hold.

or that snowball's chance in hell
we'll ever stop interfering
in other peoples' governments.

me, i'm worried about
bendy plowshares
dulling our freedom,

letting the bottom fall out
of the trillion dollar weapons industry.

and what about the scarcity of manticores?

who's gonna' save us from those
ubiquitous unicorns,

poking holes in our tightly reined
nationhooded projection,

focusing its profitable dearth
of selfless connection's
universal reflection

on the starless midnight,

so bleakly oblique,

of barking's darkling matter?

*

- Evan Hawthorn, the last day of severing's nethered ever