comedy tonight by RC deWinter

comedy tonight

this morning the times is telling me to kill

the spotted lantern flies coming for for my wine, and,

despite the throwing star lodged firmly in my chest,

i laughed. dry, rusty – not energetic enough to be anything 

but a bark – at the thought of an army of minuscule 

dotted swiss nymphs divebombing the sturdy chunk of glass

that customarily holds whatever variety of grapeblood 

i happen to have on hand.

of course the times was dead serious 

about the threat to the islands’ – staten and long – 

and upstate grape harvests – and well they should be. 

after all, where would we be without the fruit to bring

the bright chill and dark velvet nap to the various whites 

and reds produced in the empire state?

but these days i take every opportunity to spin comedy

from the political straw of the resurgence of death’s heads, 

the subjugation of women, the banning of books, art, 

our own history and the starknaked ambition of would-be adolfs 

promising god, guns and glory to millions of acolytes 

willing to trade the best of us for pale blueeyed jesus 

and the freedom to shoot anyone and anything 

whenever and wherever they please with weapons designed 

not for sidewalks and schools but for the battlefield.

so come, sit. have an early glass of something – 

i’ve got a few reds here – i don’t do white – and enjoy 

the almost but not quite summer country air 

before the proverbial shit hits the fan and even the darkests

moothest caress of grapes saved from this year’s invasion

of those pesky spotted lantern flies won’t be enough 

to blunt the horror of an America dragged almost 100 years 

back to the future

© 2023 RC deWinter @rcdewinter.bsky.social

RC deWinter’s poetry is widely anthologized, notably in New York City Haiku (NY Times/2017),

The Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Anthology (River Bend Bookshop Press, 12/2021) New Contexts:3 Coverstory Books, April 2022) in print: 2River View, Event Magazine, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, the minnesota review, Plainsongs, Prairie Schooner, Southword, the ogham stone, York Literary Review among many others and appears in numerous online publications.