“If There Is a Master Plan Nobody Knows What It Is” © Edward Michael Supranowicz

 

Do I Die If I Write This Poem

“Lord, everyone who is here comes in accordance right now,
based on the power that we have as Christians, and we tie the hands
of Satan on all his demons and send them under the feet of Jesus.
We, in the name of Jesus, we declare that each person regardless
of their race, nationality, language, will serve you and we will praise
you as Lord and we will preserve this country the way you formed it
and the way you envisioned it. We declare this in the name of Jesus.”

– U.S. Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, speaking in official capacity
as a United States government official at a “National Gathering of Prayer
and Repentance” at the “Museum of the Bible” in Washington, D.C.
on Wednesday, January 31, 2024.

If you ask me what it’s going to look like,
I’ll say think of all the breaths it’ll take away,
this building I’m imagining
and summer and Fall won’t be able to wait
to alight on the mile-wide front steps;
hear these measured breaths escaping my mouth
when I say this enchanted new mausoleum
will be spacious, massive, and elegant;
the most perfect mausoleum in all the world,
big galactically big enough to accommodate
all those who will be sent there, but, tell me:
do I die if I write this poem; will I pay for these words
with what’s left of my life?

The U.S. representative from Florida tells the crowd that every person in America will kneel and bow and pray to her Jesus.

I’m a person, and I am in America, and I’ve made no plans to kneel or to bow.

I wish I had an old black desk phone with a handset
and cradle and a rotary dial and a cord tough enough
to strangle someone with
so that when my government calls me
I can pick up the handset and slam it down hard and loud,
just like in the old movies.

If you ask me what it will be made of
I will refer you to my dreams, silent
serene visions of endless white marble, eternal
and more stained glass and gold trim
than Zeus can shake a stick at, more than any eye can see,
but I’ve got to know: do I die if I write this poem?
Can you tell me if I’ll pay for these words with my life?

The U.S. representative has never met me.
Will this person find me? Will I ever find them?

If you ask me where
this place will be, all I can tell you
is that this building, this very special place
will be built upon the American land
of turkeys and rifles, petticoats, sunsets and fentanyl,
built yes indeed upon and in the country that it needs to be in
and it has to happen when it needs to happen;
if you ask me how much it will cost for this dream
to be real I’ll say I don’t know, how much is paradise worth to you;
if you ask me who will have spots reserved
in this lovely and unbeatable tomb
all I can tell you
is that every
government official,
every officer of the law,
every new conservative American vigilante
who comes to my door
and tries to force me to bow down
and kneel before the God they pray to
will find a place there.

The U.S. representative doesn’t know me.
The U.S. representative didn’t see me get born
and doesn’t know what my apartment looks like.

If I die due to this poem, then that’s fine.
If I pay for these words with my life, I’m good with that.

Am I going to die?

 

Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in The Nervous Breakdown, Eighteen Seventy, Menacing Hedge, Drunk Monkeys and Cultural Weekly, among others. Rich recently served as Associate Editor for the online literary magazine BOMBFIRE. He is the author of All Of This Candy Belongs To Me, a collection of poems published by Jules’ Poetry Playhouse Publications. He loves his life with his love Leann in the perpetually intriguing Southwest.

Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, The Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet who has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.