"Great (Again)"

by Nancy Klepsch

From the Latin grat
In Dutch groot
The language of
Conquistadors and conquerors
Ancient screenshots
Modern .docs
Fiscal crisis
Racial violence
Rats in the streets
White punks drunk
Fake news
Bull semen
Translation issues
Now launch
A social virus
The software of us
How I feel
T-t-t-today
Grat groot great
In which file can I hide
Where’s the closest march
Can I kludge your identity
Pledge allegiance establish
A contradictory luminal stance
Look
Over there
Violence & darts
Eggs & conflicts
Today
You learned
About
Aleppo China
You can even say
A few words
Slowly
Loudly
Like all good Americans
We’regreatwe’regreatwe’regreat
Groot grat
Formulate
In the subject line
Forge new applications
Get lost in the cloud
Upload naughty puppet pictures
Say too much
Speak up
You &
The rest of the world
In my Rust Belt city
Everyone is a feminist
& non-patriarchal
Until
Somebody
Has
To
Lose
Everything
& then
It’sonlyme
That personal pronoun
Like when
We got caught
W/ smoke in
My bdrm
U split
& left me
bankrupt
Grat groot great

(Again)

(Again)

 Nancy Klepsch’s project to provide pop up poetry readings and workshops to youth and seniors and to create poetry walks around the topic of vacant buildings called Breathing These Words was funded by the public art program called Breathing Lights.  Her poems have been published in The Altar Collective, Sinister Wisdom, Oberon, 13th Moon and Chronogram among others, and online on Barzakh and Albany Poets. She is one of the founders of Riverside Community Press.