Celebrating National Poetry Month

The Vigilante

for the end of the world

When the world ends,

I’ll run shirtless

through rich neighborhoods,

stoning the large windows,

with no blinds, showing off:

 

their Chinese porcelain vases,

their top shelf whiskey, their trays

of edible gold cupcakes.

 

My stacked bills and empty wallet,

the way they watch me in their stores

as if I’m a roach on a chandelier,

how they buy their way into everything,

and blame everyone else for their problems

numb me to empathy.

 

I will be a big wind crashing

through those shattered chasms,

looking for the Georgetown doctor

who screamed at my wife for saying,

I don’t think I need surgery.

 

I’m the doctor! he spat.

I went to school for this!

 

I will be a crazed Rottweiler

Fury unleashes on him, a Rottweiler

with bear trap jaws and teeth

eager to snap his bones—

the pain a blooming reminder

that he’s no god.

 

Neither is the fast-talking surgeon

who scoffed when my wife said

her shoulder didn’t fully heal.

Your physical therapist is an idiot!

She’s not relevant anyway.

 

When the world ends,

I’ll be a canon Karma fires

at Arrogance, the floodwater

indifferent to its destruction,

a tornado whirling their good air.

 

When the world ends,

I’ll be the earthquake

that shakes up

where Privilege lives.

 

Love and Light for your Tuesday!

 

Alan King is an author, poet, and journalist living in the D.C. Metropolitan area. He holds an MFA from the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine. He’s led creative writing workshops through the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area including at Homewood, D.C. Creative Writing Workshop and Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

King’s works appear in numerous journals — including African American Review, Black Renaissance Noire, Boxcar Poetry Review, Gargoyle and Indian Review — and anthologies — including Dismantle: An Anthology of Writing from the VONA/Voices Writing Workshop, Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books, and Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington DC. 

Learn more about his publications at the Poets & Writers’ Directory of Writers (http://www.pw.org/content/alan_king). His work’s been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize (2007 & 2009) and a Best of the Net Selection (2009 & 2012). His other awards include a 2011 Social Action Scholarship at Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing and fellowships from Cave Canem and Voices of Our Nation (VONA). DRIFT (Aquarius Press/Willow Books) is his first book.

Connect with King on Twitter (@aking020881), Facebook (facebook.com/AWKing020881), his blog (alanwking.com), email (nyckencole@hotmail.com), and his newsletter “The Hourglass Flow” (http://eepurl.com/Jk4ob).