Poetry selection from the 2007 issue
Naked and Ugly, It’s What We Love
by Dan Nowak
When you become President, make me poet laureate
and I promise to put poetry back
in the hands of the people who know nothing
about playing with language.
This could be an art meant for dying
but our ghosts are strong
and like to wear out our clothes.
Crane is going through
my dirty sailor costumes as I speak,
and you can’t conceive Whitman’s
underwear fetish;
thongs are no longer reserved
for strippers pretending
to be fallen angels
providing their own poles.
Red or blue, words don’t care
which side they’re on, they are the first proponents
for Christianity and gay marriage.
We can learn
that we are our own bodies
because naked and ugly, it’s what we love.
I promise, make me important,
and I’ll give you the power
over how this work will be received.
