DM
153
E. Martin Pedersen
Cinque poesie
​
​
Morning News
A big ship turned sideways blocks the Suez Canal
North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un, shoots two missiles into the sea
the US has doubled its vaccination speed
and that's it.
Thanks to, Uncle Joe Biden
the world is sane again
we can look out the window
we can go outside in the rain
we can pull potatoes from the garden
and store them in barrels of hay
although many of us are still sick
we may get through; we may be ok
love might return to Earth
love for the Earth might return
don't we need somebody to love
and to reverse global warming
start global cooling
refreeze the poles
time-travel back to the 70's
when we were warned
plant trees, save the bees
get our human act together
push aside the pathetic
no-maskers and Nazi nostalgics
back to Nature = forward to
Nature = living in/as Nature
very third world chic
pre-industrial
a little house, all organic
a little garden, a little work
know the names of birds flowers
and children -- each laughing
each special, not one obsessed
with bad news every day
for normalcy
not without distress
and all the rest:
Thank you, Joe.
One Eyed Monster, 2020
A virus wiping out humanity
I saw that in an HBO movie
with the guy who tries, during the firestorm
to take over the United States by force --
Chris Walken, I believe, with that weird hair --
the fraud enough people believe
to jump off bridges to their deaths
the bridgeless poor left to beg and you could
be next, the riots I saw those too
fascists in camouflage, the press
the politicians bought and sold
earning their bread and jelly.
who will save us, give us back
what we don’t deserve, what we
shouldn’t want in the new world
of robots and lab experiments
a thousand yelling ‘over here’
and piles of corpses on every street
corner, until only a few survive
hounded by memories of what they
did to get here, climbing over dead doctors
men/women of action
off the psych couch in punishment
against going out absorbed in TV.
marathons, binges, addictions, spot, not
running except in their minds, spot, where
so many things go wrong before we finally prevail, spot
except the opening for next season
the doll’s eyes open, spot,
we’re stuck in a loop
playing and replaying, spot, spot,
fictions until they become
our reality and television is
alternate, inferior, boring.
When President Lincoln said
on 60 Minutes: "You can fool
some of the people some of the
time." he meant pro-slavery rebels
claiming bogus states' rights
to hold onto money in the form
of human beings, slavery which they
knew was wrong because they'd seen
Roots and Julia.
But what, what now
of the people of Burundi, Ruanda, Malawi
Niger, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and
the Democratic Republic of Congo? some
without TVs, some without PCs, some
without water, food, or wood for heat and shelter?
they all have family units of love and sufferance
whereas Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central
African Republic, Madagascar, Sudan and Chad
starve
we watch them
we do nothing.
Africa, like North America, starves for entertainment
for dancing girls in tight sequined costumes
sent from Europe where on Eurovision
everyone watches each other's shows
like boys going blind watching underwear
on the clotheslines of pretty women
pretty women, rich or poor
who hang out their underwear
grabbed by the pussy then
tossed like paper towels
after a hurricane.
The Purpose of Nothing
an action shot
life as it is truly lived
as it is meant to be lived
like each day
day could be
be your last
last action shot
candid hey
preserving the genuine
look at me, over here, I exist
in a world of posers posing.
all advertising
even self-advertising, even nothing
I ADVERTISE NOTHING®
imagine
an image of no existing photos
of John Lennon (oh yes
there are)
imagine t-shirts
before some genius
transformed them into marquees.
imagine choosing which
vegetables based on recipes
accompanied by mouth-watering
airbrushed photos of near
nakedness, the sheen of the
bell pepper skin
kiwi green
beet red
goblet of wine &
fresh-baked bread
-- all is porn
scorn, forlorn, reborn.
I may say I'm sick of the
game of two-dimensionality
or even three-dimensionality
because I just took a selfie
in front of my new TV
broadcasting in twelve di-
mensions.
that's a lot better --
that's progress!
I was six years old
when we got our first TV
so I'm a rep of the last
lost pre-tech generation
no mental stimulation
no entertainment
you think it must have been
terrible to grow up
outdoors, with the gang
inventing games
throwing rocks
digging holes
climbing trees
playing tag
running.
no, I don't feel deprived
but rather nostalgic
for deprivation
before the age of
constant everything.
I long for the nothing
of my youth
that will never ever return.
Smokey's Friends
California ablaze
no escape from smoke
evacuation routes designated
traffic jammed, metal twists, plastic melts
pet shelters and soup kitchens open
video proof shows brush
previously soaked in gasoline
the entire state sprayed
in flame-accelerant
then an arson match or random spark
short circuit or lightning bolt
everything transformed: solid to gas,
liquid lacking.
Smokey's friends don't play
with matches from 1955
Me and Smokey, we slept embraced to 1965
he told me things, real things
like a public service reminder
during the Mickey Mouse Club
between Fun with Music
and Spin and Marty
when so little intention
causes so much destruction
Meeska Mooska Mickey Mouse!
Why is our state made of newspaper, cigarette paper,
old love letters written with fountain pens on onionskin?
it was maple hardwood back then
redwood cottonwood oak willow alder ash
aspen cedar birch walnut cherry -- stuff that resists
now cardboard homes burn in seconds
welcoming in the hellfire
extra cars in driveways explode
dwarfs crack, flags flame
and the screaming covered by the crackling
except refrigerators and chimneys of brick or stone razed
like in 1906 San Francisco, east of Van Ness Avenue.
65 years ago, I hoped to live in
the pine forest someday
in retirement, like now
me and my buddy
but there are no forests anymore
no trees alive
only burnt matchsticks
what the bark beetles left
no future, only today's
ashen climate disaster
incendiary conflagrationary everything.
Sit alone and cry.
We did this.
Stormcoming --*
I've been up all night following caffeinated news shows
I feel nauseous, norm life will not continue either way:
I am already in voluntary quarantine
add voluntary exile to make it official:
Goodbye, you have let me down
Farewell, and I may not return, except in a shoebox:
to the Golden Shores, Golden Gates, Golden Corral
so it's important, but now I must sleep, coffee over
the resistance can go on without me
for a few hours, then I'll get some sad
info on either a partial victory
or a partial defeat, each its own disappointment
like waiting long hours with a terminal patient
a father always in competition with
Freud gave the son the blame
I wish I could talk it over with Dr. Freud
but he died in England in 1939, I did go
to his Vienna home, quite ordinary, like mine
my home, my mind concluding in shock
and disarray, deep rage
the masculine
I want the feminine
to guide me from now on
women, tell me what to do, where
to go, tell me to go to Hell
or back to California
if any flights exist
if California still exists.
* number 46 of The Limbo Reports
E. Martin Pedersen, originally from San Francisco, has lived for over forty years in eastern Sicily, where he taught English at the local university. His poetry appeared most recently in Avatar Review, Canyon Voices, Slab, SurVision, and Helix Literary Magazine, among others. Martin is an alumnus of the Community of Writers. He has published two collections of haiku, Bitter Pills and Smart Pills, and a chapbook, Exile's Choice, from Kelsay Books. A full collection, Method & Madness, is forthcoming from Odyssey Press. Martin's poem, "Gull Eggs," was nominated by Flapper Press for the Best of the Net Award 2023. Martin blogs at: https://emartinpedersenwriter.blogspot.com Bienvenue au Danse, Martin.
​
​