Apocalypse Wow

It’s 3:26am
In New York
Listening to
Under the Gun
By the Sisters of Mercy
Maybe
If I was a thick skinned binch
Who loved money
America would love me
But it won’t
And I’m not
It’s hard to feel like a gun
Is pointed at
Literally everything
Life and love especially
I won’t be there
In the condo with you
To listen to the last broadcast
From planet Earth
Mainlining drugs
In North America or
Western Europe
When money
Runs it all into the ground
I won’t make a sound
I’ll be in the forest
Up the mountain from
My dead
Collecting pinenuts
For the long ride
Home to the sun
Well really most likely
I’ll be on the subway
Listening to
Some song

CFNR

Instead of getting
Upset
That sometimes I wake up
Crying For No Reason,
I’m thinking
Maybe I am crying for
All the times I couldn’t
And now I can
So it’s alright
And then it stops.
All it needed was a little story.

Island

For once in
My life
I got a bit of money
For writing a poem
About New York
I thought of all the things
I might do with my money
It would pay
For a trip home
To the as yet undiscovered
Blue island of the
Soul
I could throw a lavish party
And invite
All my friends
Pay all my bills
But no
Instead
I got bedbugs
I looked into the sheath
Where the money
Had been
The empty place
Laughed
Where is your island?
Lol. I smiled
I’m smiling
The room’s quiet and the
Bugs are all
In heaven
For sure this day was one
For the memoirs
Tomorrow I will
Paint the room blue
And put the bed back in
It has to look good
For when the
Love of my life
Steps in through its door
And our whole world changes
But there’s
Time
Tonight I
Sleep in the hammock
And tell my jokes to the
Cat
I’m drinking beer
This poem sucks
Cause I’m so happy

5 THINGS AT 40

You are not crazy, it’s the patriarchy
You’re not a loser, it’s the capitalism
You are not old, time’s not really a thing
You’re not alone, I’m here
You’re made of stars, that’s fucking cool

Poems selected by Sophie Robinson, our virtual poet in residence for the October / November Issue of The Believer.