Inauguration Poems // Various Artists

Tremendous Political Haiku // Daniela Olszewska

Tremendous Political Haiku #1

Bigly, the Golden

Soviet Shower Blackmailed

Trump Un-Lincoln-ish

Tremendous Political Haiku #2

Buzz Feeds A Scandal

Spread Eagling Fiasco

In January

Tremendous Political Haiku #3

So Very Class Act

Memes An Enormous Bombshell

Democratically

Tremendous Political Haiku #4

This Unverified

An Electoral Collage

Hashtag CIA

Tremendous Political Haiku #5

Clickbait in Sheep Clothes

Un-Documented Silk Sheet

Precedence Slept Here

Tremendous Political Haiku #6

U R Fake News 2

Compromising Journalists

The Truth Reports OH

Tremendous Political Haiku #7

What’s Rather Russia

TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH

HUNT! at the Hotel

Tremendous Political Haiku #8

East Cyberattacks

Pushed Past An A+ Sunset

Red Interference

Tremendous Political Haiku #9

News Conference-Elect

Is Conceding Twitter-ly

SAD Forms of Suspense

Tremendous Political Haiku #10

Our Red White and Blue

Moscowian Exhibit

Bordered on Bizarre

Tremendous Political Haiku #11

Illicit Camera

Carefully Sources Say Yes

America Wow

Tremendous Political Haiku #12

Last Shot At Gross Chance

These Hyper-Leaked Concessions

Living in Hacked Saw

Tremendous Political Haiku #13

Kills Climate After

The Keep Caring Department

Nobody Blinks Right

Tremendous Political Haiku #14

Washington Balloon

Federal Festivities

Makes Great Against U

Je Suis Pret: An Inauguration Poem for Donald Trump // Sean Frasier

MacLeod blood curdled

the Falkirk mud.

The flowers grew red there

years after.

The deepest rooted thistles

did not would not

could not forget.

When Wallace faced a tyrant

his limbs were hacked away,

paraded 'cross the empire

so the embattled

would not could not

did not forget.

His tarred face gazed

from the highest pike

beside the heads of his brothers.

Frasers, as their clan's crest promised,

ready for death

and strawberry sunsets their blood

did not could not

would not forget.

And new tyrants rise

blind to history's truths.

Before boasting from your throne

weigh your sacrifices

against the violence

staining London's bridge.

We did not could not

will not forget.

INAUGURATION POEM // Gage Wente

i know that you would gladly crush me if you could

On the eve of // Erin Bonuso

I stayed up to watch

the clock roll over to 12:01

The day gone

Rain making giant puddles

to carry my children across.

I will edit in the morning,

scrawl reminders in the margins:

"Smile."

"Be friendly."

"Pause."

Redact some of what

I might have said.

Tonight we sleep restless

white noise, a deafening lullaby

backs pressed hard together.

INAUGURATION POEMS // RUSSELL JAFFE

INAUGURATION POEM

The lives of everyone you know and ever knew summed up as,

"but as their technology and power grew, people became greedy, and lazy, and weak, and fearful, and they turned on one another" seems unfair.

But we were never any greater

than the measure of our stories.

The end.

INAUGURATION POEM

That we would choose our doors with locks on them.

It seems unfair. But it's the story we incorporated.

Towns are peoples' frames around

the world within we're in. But people also block.

People build telescopes and also soundproof walls.

People put drains in the floors of rooms and let people put people in those rooms.

People legislate. People lived in rooms of tied up plastic bags. And every screen was a belief.

A person is a miracle of chemicals but people stagnate.

When the ceiling is so low it's hard to reach for the stars. When the ceiling is opaque

the vision becomes more and more imaginary. We must also share this knowledge: People anesthetize. People opt out.

People commit suicide. People unincorporate. We know this.

Off the top of your head,

can you define liberty?

INAUGURATION POEM

What will you tell

Celestine?

The Inauguration Speech of Martin Heidegger's Hologram, January 20, 2017 // Don Zirilli

Some have asked the question, “When was America great?”

This is the wrong question.

We are in the business of making great, not being great.

America was never great. America was being made great,

and now it will be made great again.

Some have asked the question, “What is America?”

There is no America.

We are in the business of making America.

I love the Redwood Forest.

Jean-Paul Sartre sees only trees, and they disgust him.

This is why we can’t burn flags,

because a flag is a symbol. There is no being in a flag,

just as there is no being in America.

That’s why America is never wrong, because it is never anything.

It has no volume to contain sin. It has no weight for guilt.

It is magnificently empty, like our new leader.

And because they’re empty, they need us.

We will no longer sit on our porches feeling useless.

America needs our hands.

Be hands. Be an economy of hands.

We could be conquerors. We could be the filth under a sneaker.

We search the heavens and the news, but we’re not there.

We are not something to be looked for.

We are what we decide to be.

If America rules the world, if it bows to China,

if it massacres Arabs, if it builds infrastructure,

if America,

is up to us.

But we’ve already decided,

and here it is, hand on a holy book,

repeating words that have nothing to do with it

or us, or this thing we’ve already done