Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Brass-Elevator Mountaineer
A weak imitation of
Osip Mandelstam
For whom we pray, “Memory eternal”
Our lives no longer sense truth around them
In our ewails we are afraid of each other’s words
But whenever there’s an eye-rolled whisper
It’s about the brass-elevator mountaineer
The ten tiny worms of his fingers
His words like mountains of loot
The waving tendrils atop his head
The glitter of his shiny Tesla
Wheels stained with a scum of groveling bosses
He toys with the tributes of his house pets:
One clenches his fisties
Another salutes
A third pledges eternal loyalty
He pokes out his fingers and grabs ‘em by their _______
He magic-markers mass deportations:
Three hundred or more for El Salvador
A hundred or so for Guantanamo
Uncounted hundreds to disappear
From routine check-ins here
“Your search has returned zero (0) matching records”
He rolls the possibilities of ____ __________ on his tongue like diet
sodas
He wishes he could deport his former best friends forever
Our lives no longer sense truth around them
