- Daniela Olszewska, Gage Wente, Sean Frasier
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