Thinking of Mayakovsky during the Days
of the Little Napoleon, Putin, While the Wind Cries Mary
It’s madness being kissed
By a bat who claims
To have been given answers
In the middle of its radar last night
The kiss slowly seeps
Into the bloodstream
And I begin thinking
How Mayakovsky
Came to his revelations
About this particularly
Russian way of death
And how the bat
Disguised as a gun
Slipped into his room to scream
Live Update on the War
It was as plain as white on white
A sterile room filled with nurses
Holding band-aids to the sun
One kid after another
Plowing the proof under
In all of this a grand arsenal
Of cigarettes and tanks
Fueled by the obvious
Carbon dating of the wasted young
Any old fuck can tell the story
Of the dead at the end