The Poet's Photo

That gasbag

Dumbforbrains Thunderjaws

runs for office

If IT wins

all the poets who wrote

unkind "nerd mcwords"

about IT

will be rounded up

for their police photos

much like

the NKVD photo

(Народный комиссариат внутренних дел)

of Osip Mandelstam

who displeased

Uncle Joe in Russia

Two different sets

of smug

and resistance laden images

attaboy Osip

I hope I'll be arrested

for my poetry

because I can think

of nothing more lasting

than the photo of a poet

charged with poetry

just before he or she

went into the mashamatic

or perished in the gulag

Such a cover

for the collected poems

there never was

that should sell

for years beyond years

It's very hard to get arrested

for writing anything

in the United States

One must threaten

great bodily harm

Since I'm non-violent

in a physical sense

I shall poetically do

the only action possible

I intend to commit poetry

on Dumbforbrains Thunderjaws

I shall

eviscerate verbiage

reposition prepositions

adjudicate adjectives

assault adverbs

confront conjunctions

neutralize nouns

plunder pronouns

injure interjections

detonate determiners

I shall sabotage any badinage

I shall devastate the dictates

I shall disarm discussion

I shall detonate debate

I am prepared to suffer

every poetic act

for the want

of a police photo

with my name and numbers

The headline shall read

CHARGED WITH POETRY

I shall serve my time with dignity

Barry G. Wick

(To support and defend writers in prison

please visit the website of

Pen International

who does exceptional work

to alert the world when

writers of conscience

are attacked and in trouble

worldwide)