Because I am slithy and mimsy, I reign as the Almost-Upright Queen of Portmanteau: infomercial affluenza smog and a sharktopus, and you shouldn’t scoff at the mixing of the breeds: cama coywolf Zonkey or do you think--Miss-not-so-innocent—you should?
If so, Miss Zebra make way for Mr. Donkey. Come sit by this bank of listless waters. Come share your hay and silage, bark and saplings, because there won’t be another generation like yours.
So what? We are all a ghostly hybrid residue and this world has seen worse. What happened when one Belgian1 came to more than admire a woman born of the Twa or of the Babongo people? They laid down together and there made an increase although, perhaps, they left no credible record of their daughter, nor she of hers, nor they of theirs. So what if someone writes a blasphemy about the listicles of each of them; they have been liberated from death, yes? Because they
are the next generations’ guesstimate, its hazmat not to be mansplained. They are a metaverse. They are a romcom, a spife and spork and most definitely sacrilege wedded to deliciousness—so sacrilicious, 2075. If they live that long.
1 I wrote this poem in the midst of reading Adam Hochshild’s “King Leopold’s Ghost”
The year of voting dangerously
The ayes may have it. The nays may have it. The most important question: whether or not to support the kale lobby or ignore & go for pumpernickel? Should we few unschooled debate? On the one hand, kale threatens to split the country-- but what of spinach, cabbage, lettuce? Because, on the other hand, who can trust in bread? White today, a darkening rye tomorrow--
-- Lynne Thompson was the 4th Poet Laureate of the City of Los Angeles and received a Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. The author of three collections of poetry--Beg No Pardon, Start With A Small Guitar, and Fretwork--her fourth, Blue on a Blue Palette, will be published by BOA in April 2024.