Prop up
Prop up the
Propa-grandizing/ the proper use
Of grandio-sizing braggadocio/
Bigly, or little-ly, or literally
The little-est amount of listening
That is necessary
Fine-toothed comb and tooth-combed records,
Fighting with tooth and nail for every vote
Not yet nailed down
Fire-hot-wind voice and all the words
Still smearing themselves across
The image of your image – 10 TV’s heigh
And 8 platitudes wide
Red, white and weary
Of the wild indifference to
Justice/
Weary of the fight for just-us
and the ferocity of the fight
Still looming
I owned it,
I owned it, this little lump of land
This place I touched (I touched it first)
(I touched it with my own hand)
A border line – I drew it fast
I colored in the corners
I named her names I thought of first (with my own little brain)
I keep her now
this map is mine.
This land is your land,
(this land is my land)
There are 9 truths,
There are 9 truths, four lies
And another hopeful pile of lives
Waiting to
Rage war
To wage pages of lies
To raise walls, not wages
To shout at equality as it comes – disparaging, lonely
And dissident
Gun-full and hopeless
It fights for the wrong end of the stick
For the shortest straw in a
Haystack
For the wildest dream
Of a destiny made manifest
Too long ago, too close at hand
Too desperately reaching onwards
Towards life fried in profitmargin margarine
And 1% of 1% of 1% of what we deserve
Of what we fought for
Of what war waged in us
For what declaration of
What peace?
What peace?
And whose war still rages in the night?
No horizon on the map
Ah – no horizon on the map
Only lines, figures, demarcations
destinations, reverberations, time-lapsed imitations
radioactive limitations, miles-full of instigations and instant-nations.
And stories/
or a hand,
at least,
Reaching
towards
an ocean (an opening)
This is a map of where I was
This is a map of where I was
when I found that crimson
Green
absolute blue
and curtains of mountains
were not enough
to tell me where
I am.
Lauren Suchenski is a fragment sentence-dependent, ellipsis-loving writer and lives somewhere where the trees change color. As a poet, ballet dancer, actress, photographer, painter, mother and Waldorf educator, Lauren believes in the inherent creative capability within all people.