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Astonishment Reconfigured

Linda Belans 5-2-17

 

Be astonished by

a returning moon

a cereus bloom

the wail of a loon

 

Drop your jaw wide

at a prism wave’s reach

the medicinal leech

a bulldog bat’s screech

 

But

Soften your lids

Restore your bite

Lower your brows

At the sound or the site

of

            Words he tweets

            Lies he tells

            Proclamations he makes

            Propaganda

he sells

 

Be nonplussed

by a printer-made shoe

that spit becomes glue

feathers aren’t blue

 

But

Pull up your socks

Lengthen your spine

Oil your joints

Reconfigure the trine

 

To be astonished by     him

is a blow to the head

paralytic freeze

till democracy’s

dead    

            Resist

            temptation to refute

 

Instead

 

Ride liberty’s back

mouth agape at the wind

broadcasting words

sucked deep from within

flung from your jaw

to the dry fissured earth

reconstitute freedom

for all that you’re worth

 

Be angry

Incensed

Be ready to fight

From twilight’s last gleam

Through dawn’s refracted light

 

But do not

be astonished

by                                      him.

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