“Why Can’t I Have an Atom Poet for a Message Boy?” — Ace Boggess
“Why Can’t I Have an Atom Poet for a Message Boy?”
—Halldor Laxness, The Atom Station
Build a bomb on your tongue, then build a universe.
Creator, destroyer. Tell me the news is bad, &
bad good for the goal of overwhelming force,
shock & awe. Tell me about blissfulness,
never that ignorance sings an evil note in the dark.
You have been paid. Tell me message & answer.
Why is a dollar worth less than a skull?
Why does air smell like burning pennies?
The anchorman sat expressionless
as he put the question to you:
Was this ever the right thing to do?
Your words curse ground beneath your feet.
When you die, I will bury you in limestone,
so that as the rains come they will
wash you farther down, farther down.
***
Ace Boggess is author of three books of poetry, most recently Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2017), and the novel A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.