☀ Today's Poem: "Dream Song #322" Daniel Borzutzky

A technical error caused the bomb to fall from the airplane and onto the city
The military knew it was a bomb but they told the reporters

It was a UFO         The critic believed that because I avoided rhyme and meter
I was under the illusion my verbal constructs were self-generated by nature

A spokesman for the mayor apologized for not warning residents that the army
Would be dropping training bombs in their neighborhood

I lightened the burden of my imagination
By casting out the past and all of its pains and anxieties

I thought my therapist was a redeemer
But really he was the antichrist

I tried to write a sonnet
But instead I wrote a seven-page letter to my grandmother

When I said goodbye to my grandmother for the last time
She wouldn't come out of the bathroom because of the germs

She hugged a bottle of bleach
Gave me cab fare and I never saw her again

The past is an endless crisis that reappears
With each new state of crisis

When she poured bleach into the sink
I imagined dead fish in the river or fish falling out of the sky

The city hasn't replaced the corroded water pipes in two hundred years
There are holes where once there was lead

No one drinks tap water
We only bathe or brush when we need to

She told me I needed courage
But what I really needed was a sandwich

She told me I needed grit
But what I really needed was clean water

The poets played a game where they tried to write the funniest suicide notes
They posted the suicide notes on Facebook and one of them lost his job

I remember the hotel room where I saw a man cry for the first time
He was talking on the phone to his best friend     my grandfather     they hadn't
        spoken in years

The curtains were the color of red wine
The bedspread the color of sand

My grandfather's best friend was traded to another country for petroleum
In a plea bargain he never agreed to

I tried to seize hold of the memory at the moment of danger
But I missed

I wanted to be avant-garde
But I was too concerned with being liked by my audience

I wrote an article about a man
Who was convinced the world would end next week

I called him the day after the world didn't end
He refused to answer the phone