Author: stevekuusisto

Uncle History can wiggle his ears
Which is a great trick
Except he’s never invited
To children’s parties
He performs for sheep
Out in the meadow
By moonlight
Uncle does his thing
But the flock
Understands that other trick
For the wolf
Wiggles his ears also

You can’t always pretend you’re fully alive
Uncle History says—he’s talking
To a squirrel—living between life and death
Is exhausting, I know you know
When he talks to animals
He feels closest to himself
But not in a Lord Tennyson
Rum-ti-tum way
More like he’s asking
For editing advice
As he writes a suicide note
“Come on out here
And stand in the rain with me”
Says a Norway rat
‘You have to keep living
In order to suffer
From the opposite
Of your intentions”
“In general,” Uncle thinks
“It is humbling
To be stymied by a rat”

Uncle History can’t get this this thing to work
This Schopenhauer thing
This Adorno gizmo
The problem is his guts
He has disbiosis—can’t
Keep things down
Hamlet had it too
Of course the world
Is driven by unfeeling will
And tippy toe
Conformist culture
Knows what gets you off
He knows everything
And wears a serape
Of negative dialectics
Yes I do yes I do
He says
Talking to his parakeet

“We are not the same”
cries Aunt History
“I work in the fields
where bones are buried”
Uncle thinks
Bones, leaves, earth, blood
Form a haiku
She knows he’s off plumb
But she’s occupied now
Consoling the birds

Are you a keyboard warrior? I know I am. The term is not complimentary. It designates someone whose political life is merely online, a person who doesn’t join public protests. I would plead the fifth except I haven’t committed a crime. Blogging, writing on social media, and voicing my opinions publicly are not failures of oppositional discourse. I’m blind, can’t drive, live in a city with mediocre pubic transportation. Getting to demonstrations isn’t even half way possible for me. So keyboard warrior I am. I wrote this poem today:

Living in Trump’s America

All this grief and nowhere to put it
I ask the doctor what to do
He recalls a meadow from childhood
Someplace in Bavaria
He thought it was innocent grass
Because the bones were out of sight
The sun is up this morning

I picture wicker chairs
In summer, a garden party
For Trotsky, a gramophone
In the weeds…playing
That song again
A chorus
For the workers
Who finally
Have enough to eat

Auntie history hears books
Shelf-talking
This is ok at home
But not in vast libraries
Once in Madrid
She went almost mad
The cacophony
So she ran
Into the Plaza de Colón Square
Convinced her hair
Was blazing
Later
When she was calm once more
She reflected
That negative electricity
Is as good as positive
Since both are electricity

A muffled music box
Is the first thing Uncle History remembers
How he went searching for it
In the sad palace
Looked high and low
Everyone has this
This musical toy
That can’t be found
Now he’s old and thinks
He’ll soon lie
Beneath the earth
Where music
Is concerned
It’s not likely
Underground
But the tune
He remembers
Was indistinct
This might mean everything

“Something smells bad in the refrigerator”
Says Uncle History—“Maybe its
A rotten egg” says Auntie
“I think it came before the egg”
Says Uncle—“the stink
Is the malador
The primal stench…”
“Its a funk” says Auntie
“Its been sneaking up
For some time”
They say this
Simultaneously
Like children
Spotting a ballon
It drifts over them
And inured as they are
To mephitic vapors
They salute

Because they’re “Auntie” and “Uncle” History

One surmises they’ve brothers and sisters

“That’s a good guess!”

(As they say on game shows)

Alas they’ve no relatives

Though strangers often come

To camp on their lawn 

Who are these folks 

Claiming kinship?

There’s old Slappy

Who feeds the furnace

And laughs at nothing

And Alexander Blok

Waving his bloody shirt

My spirit is old; 

And some black lot awaits me
On my long road…