Chris Bullard

C h r i s   B u l l a r d

The Post-Lethe World

Forgetting makes everything new.

Make oblivion the new black.

Tune in for the Jerry Lewis telethon against déjà vu.

You’ll watch it over and over.

Let the name of the Caesar whose statue

wags a finger in the public square

melt like a mental snowman.

Think of him as “Ruffles” or “Quigley.”

When the world goes blue-screen

you can touch the light and dark rectangles

on that thing in the corner and be startled

because you are not deaf.

The market is casting a Shakespeare replacement.

Join an infinite number of monkeys at the keyboard.

The Unnamable, Due to the Possibility of Litigation

Divorce changed her. The change stoked her.

The bar started serving adrenaline martinis.

Shouts of Veto, Nyet, departed

like a feeble parent sent to Sun City.

Her body put up a score of ten zillion;

her mind stayed a red baseline on the thermometer graph.

She became as selfless as a name brand

while her lovers stiffened into lecturers

dribbling the foamy word responsibility,

from their irony-free lips like burped beer.

When they bored her with their concern

she raised her cobra-coiffure and buzzed down Route 66.

So the chorus hummed Bobbie McGee

while everyone adjusted to freedom.

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