Image: Denny Müller

The Tyrant Smells Decay  

 Stop seeking a reality

 Neither sound nor trace 

 Relieve empty scavengers

 Of chemical spills and

 Luxury boats

 The sharks have nothing left to chew

 This ferry is optimistic

 When the world ends

 You’ll get there anyway

 Fingers work a video game

 Of delusional fuckers

 And farmers markets

 A terrible Frankenstein

 A real piece of living art

 Roll and pitch master

 You’ll be happy

Building a terrible thing

 


_{This is a found poem from Grant, Mira. Symbiont. New York. Orbit, 2014. Print. Pages 444-472.}

Jen MacBain-Stephens (she/her) went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in Iowa where she is landlocked. Her fifth, full length poetry collection, “Pool Parties” is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in 2023. She is also the author of fifteen chapbooks. Some of her work appears in The Pinch, Kestrel, Cleaver, Dream Pop, Slant, Yalobusha Review, and Grist. She is the director of the monthly reading series Today You are Perfect, sponsored by the non-profit Iowa City Poetry. Find her online at http://jennifermacbainstephens.com/.