A torpor that rolls down
from the mountaintop-removed
mountains, from the Caucasus,
from the dimly lit screen
through your eyeballs and
those of the whole country
in the sunken place
/
in the Sun-King’s palace
there’s a hole at court—
throw your iPads in,
form that amply loud secret,
mounds of meth/rock use,
form them and, in tawdry mauve,
a torrent of trolls now
Michael Begnal is the author of Future Blues (Salmon Poetry, 2012) and Ancestor Worship (Salmon Poetry, 2007), as well as the chapbook The Muddy Banks (Ghost City Press, 2016). His work has appeared in journals and anthologies such as Notre Dame Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Empty Mirror, Public Pool, Thinking Continental: Writing the Planet One Place at a Time (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has an MFA from North Carolina State University and teaches at Ball State University. He can be found online at www.mikebegnal.blogspot.com and https://twitter.com/Michael_Begnal