Kari Gunter-Seymour – Writers Resist

Boilermaker

By Kari Gunter-Seymour

In January Australia caught on fire. Was that fire put out?
Who knows because America decided to play Russian roulette with Iran, then
Prince Harry & Megan flipped off the Royal Family shortly before 45’s
impeachment debacle, John Bolton trading his testimony for a book deal
& just as Corona Virus began to whisper its ugly name the U.K. stepped out
of the European Union. Somehow, in spite of himself & his sleezy
law team, Harvey Weinstein was found guilty & wonks & dweebs
started asking if Corona beer was safe to drink & everyone on Facebook
became a flu expert or zealot.

In a shocking Hail Mary before Super Tuesday,
Buttigieg & Klobuchar decided to pass, then Warren accepted the inevitable
& Sanders did a jig, but the flip-flopper poles gave Bernie no choice
but to leave it to Biden, fence-straddling in his basement,
Viva la Revolución! via Zoom. Italy shut its whole self down & pandemic
became a scary word but not a motivator until the DOW took a dump
& then even the wealthy were washing their hands. NYC became Zombieland
just as it dawned on us there were no face masks, ventilators, or toilet paper,
then the Pentagon released videos of UFOs & has anyone seen Kim Jong-Un?

With predictions of murder hornets & millions of deaths,
we locked down & model citizens rebelled, middle fingers at full salute,
plus camo & AR-15s. Sports events were cancelled & Koby Bryant flew
forever into the mountains & one sleepy, dusty, Minneapolis afternoon
a police officer kneeled a man to death, smug as any school yard bully,
yes, I said it & the new word was protest, all colors marching incognito
behind totally hip masks & the president made arrangements to gas
a peaceful gathering for a photo op.

Somewhere in the ruckus, a giant asteroid
narrowly missed earth & a troop of monkeys in India snatched Corona Virus
blood samples as if they were Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean Candy & what
the hell with the trans hate J.K. Rowling? Suddenly not wearing masks
&/or protecting certain statues became a God-given right to the same clan
who think Gone With the Wind is fiction.

Meanwhile, the Congo’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak is over & I
personally am like, There was an Ebola outbreak? & a strange radio signal
is being broadcast from somewhere in the universe & I’m almost certain
James T. Kirk or Mr. Spock already took care of this back in December 1979.
To prove a point & wrack up points with the Prez, Florida was like, Hold my beer,
opened beaches & bars, made it all the way to number one on the virus hot spot map
& that self-same Prez picks the middle of a pandemic to urge the Supreme Court
to strike down Obama Care.

It’s only July & if this is not enough for you rough & rowdies,
a massive dust cloud came straight at us from the Sahara & Iran just issued an arrest
warrant for “Mr. Trump” & do you know, people in America can actually buy beer
that is purposely mixed with fruit-flavored seltzer? I will warn you straight up,
if you drop a shot glass full of whiskey into one of those carbonated beasts, you better
be ready for more than a boil-up.

Kari Gunter-Seymour’s current collection is titled A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2020). Her poems appear in numerous journals and publications including Rattle, Crab Orchard Review, Still, The LA Times and on her website at www.karigunterseymourpoet.com. She is the founder and executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project, at www.womenofappalachia.com, and editor of the project’s anthology series, Women Speak, volumes 1-5. She is a retired instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year, and Poet Laureate of Ohio.