Crowned Disease

shit happens
when we wield toilet paper
packages bundling so smooth
secure
nothing bad happens in loads of 40 right?

we cling to small scraps of destructible paper
it’s ours while people breathe
and make contact
and die
toilet paper is all you need, fuck love

and a man in a crown laughs
touching mouths and noses
while watching arms flailing, toilet paper pounding floors
people defending their divine right to avoid death
I have a child. That’s ten points over you, single lady

I deserve. I need, I’m a hemophiliac leper
the crowned man walks on
laughing
no one stops him
where is he going?

  Yash Seyedbagheri__

Ode To A Counselor

sadness means
just seeing a counselor
who dissects problems like algebra equations
X equals more time on the treadmill or
painting rainbows when it’s storming
it’s a simple solution

who cares what happened?
your sister got decapitated?
paint a child on a blue trike
mother ran off?
channel forgiveness and jot down your feelings
and associations that doesn’t work

history is subjective, the counselor proclaims, while he
talks a little too loud
and laughs a little too little
and strides too fast. but he’s got six degrees
concealing fucked-up souls beneath Freudian beards
and penis shaped umbrella racks

just pop a pill, white, yellow, purple
pretty popping pills
pills carpet bomb Dresden of consciousness
at least you smile
for a moment, a fleeting moment
and you can always see a counselor

repeat, rinse, time for more pills
motherfucker

meanwhile the counselor has blown his brains out
his penis on his desk
carefully preserved in memory
of ideas, infallible ideas, but don’t cry
go see another one. It’s easy
really easy

sadness just means seeing a counselor

  Yash Seyedbagheri__

Festival Coronation

gilt crowns assume their place on bearlike regal head,
tubas and pomp, hollow and grand, and
bassoons accentuating ritual,
demanding fealty brass instruments
drown peasants, trying to hold onto a potato
Jews huddled, wondering, why us, when is the next pogrom?
but everyone listens to the tuba, bearded man on the throne
watching with suspicion

make Imperial Russia Orthodox again
only Russian will be spoken, his bear voice proclaims
anyone who speaks Ukrainian or anything else
subversive. We want all things Russian,
proclaims bear
resplendent
father of his people
anointed by God, just as God gave him permission to

starve peasants, while proclaiming fealty to them,
call Jews Christ-killers, looking the other way
as his son will, another regal parasite
yes, they beat up Jews, but they were true patriots,
they argue. devoted to tsar and God
priests and rampaging royalists and peasants
lines drawn in the tundra
real people love him. dissent is

faux news, lese majeste.
lock them up. lock them up,
better yet, five years in Siberia
after all, locking people up is the only answer
freeze free thought from their minds
but on this holy day, the tubas and bassoons roar
with coronation glory
the prisoners in Siberia freeze
Jews wonder when some other asshole will get the

blame for Christ and revolutionary sentiment.
but the tsar insists. they just have to have the tubas and bassoons
and the crowns and robes. order is alive, peasants starve for
their own good. subversives bleed
the tsar gets crowned
goes fishing while Jews and workers bleed
people who proclaim obsequiousness rewarded
God save the tsar

God save humanity

rot in hell, bearded tsars

  Yash Seyedbagheri__

__________

Nighthawk

tonight

a bar window opens onto black,
broken only by swaths of light
while I hunch over an Amaretto Sour
a glass of champagne
whatever my fancy is

stalling the last sip,
the bill

people disperse without acknowledgment
train wails late night laments
jukebox plays weary oldies
the champagne just churns

it’s time to go

home

what a harsh word

  Yash Seyedbagheri__