Matthew Caretti

Amerikan Sojourn as a Rant

I’m in the wokest place where most lie already asleep.
   The curfew not for we few stealing down dark alleys,
   the back door of a padlocked bar unlocking the rhymes
   that give this day reason. Where masked poets unmask
   the current times, times two.

With kindness minding the mindlessness of those
   wrapped in the warmth of their power. But cold blows
   hard. A little dictator dictating the electors slated
   to wipe the slate clean. A pole dance before the slow
   dance to the polls.

Still news the waning days of a lie so big it showered
   us golden, diaper darlings doing the unthinkable. In-
   surrection an erection of lost causes of days gone by
   relived in high def and death. A shaman demands a
   hanging, pointed horns missing the point.

Where do we go from here? not so much a question
   as an imperative impaired by how far we’ve strayed
   from what is right; right as in correct/decent/honest/
   kind. Not that right of this dark night. Here the left-
   overs of the open mic. The spotlight. The light.

midnight rain flash of a muzzle

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About the Author

Matthew Caretti began publishing his poems in 2009, though his fascination with Eastern short-form genres began much earlier. In 2017, he garnered the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award for Harvesting Stones. In 2022 published his first collection in print, Africa, Buddha, with Red Moon Press. He lives and teaches high school English in Pago Pago, American Samoa.