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Thursday, February 12, 2015

BRIAN WILLIAMS

by Dennis Mahagin



Brian Williams, suspended anchor of NBC Nightly News, with American troops at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq, in March 2007. Credit Photo by Jeff Riggins/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images accompanying “Was Brian Williams a Victim of False Memory?” by Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, February 9, 2015


You got fourteen seconds
To make it
Right … INCOMING ! Heh he he he heh, just
Kidding, guy, I like a little
Lie, good
In the sky.
It’s like listening to a
Vacuum, the next
One and the next,
It’s like
Anti-Macassar,
Hezbollah, black flak
Cleaner in another room,
One down the hall
A whopper in the hopper
And knowing
Will come to an end
Soon. I want you to take five
No eight
Months, be chilling in Cancun,
Wait for my call, wait for it
This will all blow away
Like an Andover squall
One of those big bruise colored
Motherfuckers grin
Like Oz
@ the rim, ask God
Ask him
How it’s all done
With mirrors, a little white one
Now and then. You’re our
Man, you have always been
I played a little cornerback
Myself, have I told you?
NYU, then Cornell, no quarter
Back quarterback !  heh heh
How I learned my best
Dance steps, sweater vest,
Show you my
Gene Kelly
Someday, this is fading, fading
Away, already, the truth
Is a voice
In an air vent, it
Drips from the eaves, hits
Rockefeller’s
Pavement
… look fuckit, take
A year, will ya?
Search for
Your Soul, go where
it meant.


Dennis Mahagin’s poems have appeared in Evergreen Review, Absinthe Literary Review, Exquisite Corpse, Everyday Genius, elimae, The Nervous Breakdown, Corium, Stirring, Juked and Night Train. His latest poetry collection is called Longshot & Ghazal – available now from Mojave River Press.