The Orange Emperor Has No Clothes
- The Orange Emperor Has No Clothes
1
The devil's in the sleight of hand: a vulture's lazyellipses overhead—bread & circuses like Hollywood hoodoo needles of sinisterthat obfuscate the details—killing strangers, so we don'tkill the ones that we love. It should not be overlooked that the blanket, in general, was an object weaponized by white people who used them as vehicles for spreading disease.
2
Perpetual apogee is the fantasy of power, to enact a consumer-drivenderivative of oligarchy: the monosyllabicutterances & rabble-rousinggruntings of Donald Trump. We've become mere spectatorsto the chaos abound: the meandering gyre in the Pacificstretched double the size of Texas . . .a plastic magnet, opening & closingits hungry fish mouth.
3
Our tongues have calcifiedthe way the mind makes a relic [End Page 81] out of every memory, biting into any bit of dirt or dust.Our mouths becomea faulty aperturewaiting to be filled with jackals.
4
Misinterpreting empathy as a door left open, an opportunity.
When you're in love with someonethere are occasional winterswhere a wolf breaks into your garage & eats all of your emergency stored food.
Note: Quotations in italics are from ''Killing Strangers'' by Marilyn Manson and ''Field Journal'' by Jessica Murray. [End Page 82]
henry 7. reneau, jr. is the author of the poetry collection freedomland blues (Transcendent Zero Press) and the digital chapbook physiography of the fittest (Kind of a Hurricane Press). Additionally, he has self-published a chapbook entitled 13hirteen Levels of Resistance, and his work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
