FAKE NEWS POEMS

2017 YEAR IN REVIEW

52 WEEKS, 52 HEADLINES, 52 POEMS

MARTIN OTT

BLAZEVOX[BOOKS]
Buffalo, New York
Fake News Poems
by Martin Ott
Copyright © 2019

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without

the publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza

Cover Art: Determined Dad Mows Lawn During Tornado by Cecilia Wessels, 2018

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-322-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951449

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217
Editor@blazevox.org

p ublisher of weird little books

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“It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men
die every day for lack of what is found there.”

—William Carlos Williams, Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

January 2, 2017, Publication: Boing Boing, News Headline:

AUTOMATED BOOK-CULLING SOFTWARE DRIVES LIBRARIANS

TO CREATE FAKE PATRONS TO "CHECK OUT" ENDANGERED TITLES

The ghost in the machine had become the machine.

Fahrenheit 451 was in danger because the AI
believed in the metric system, while no patron
could spell it. All’s Quiet on the Western Front

would have been replaced with a book on tape

of a tell-all from a YouTube star turned politician.
Some believe the librarians placed their fingers
on the scales, the equivalent of dishing vegetables

to lions or children, and readers needed a helping

hand. Choices would need to be made between
The Poisonwood Bible and the King James Bible.
There was always that novel that saved someone

from the wrong decision, the wrong mate, the wrong

career, but the disappearing book was the mystery
of librarians reaching deep to stave off extinction.
Robots would program books and imaginations.

Wasn’t this just the tired algorithm of popularity

that had haunted them all from schoolyard days
when they clutched their books close and carried them
to bed, each new tome a lover, teacher, and friend?

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January 13, 2017, Publication: Mondoweiss, News Headline:

ORIGINS OF A GOLDEN SHOWER

His urge began in the mythic land of Florida,

where power surges from the steaming swamp.
The fountain of youth, of course, was rumored

to spray liquid sun from its antediluvian well,

to shoot into the veins of any who viewed the show.
This is where other questers had failed, of course:

to imbibe the fluid would turn a man into gold,

and gradual exposure would transform the skin
into the hue of gilded walls in the morning rays

of a penthouse tower overlooking the world.

Our hero knew that the secret to eternal life
was known only to women, and he grabbed

at chances to pull forth secrets from the mist,

watching when he could the golden showers
in every land he built his kingdom, Moscow

on a rainy evening, perched on a hotel throne,

musing on how the waterfall of humanity
gushed in his presence, history in the taking.

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January 15, 2017, Publication: The Inquisitr, News Headline:

RINGLING BROS CIRCUS CLOSURE SIGNALS THE END TO ‘THE SADDEST SHOW
ON EARTH’

We know why the clowns were frowning,

bloody smiles downturned for a cavalcade

of towns, the howls of elephants and lions

trumpeting the end of audience thunder.

I took my son Leo to the circus just after

the divorce, the subconscious urge to be

the popular parent a spectacle in itself.

Mornings came and went without a laugh.

We both agreed the daredevil clown spinning

a motorcycle on a rickety track in the rafters

was our favorite, even though we both hated

heights and falling into a bottomless shadow.

There were nights when we no longer spoke

and a crowd of many became a father of none.

Our demons come in many shape and sizes,

out of canons and lions’ mouths, nightmares

for which we aren’t equipped, inconsolable

jesters slipping away, welts that won’t heal.

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January 23, 2017, Publication: Grub Street, News Headline:

NOBODY KNOWS WHY THOUSANDS OF SKITTLES WERE ON THEIR WAY TO

FEED WISCONSIN COWS

Nobody knows why the Skittles flowed like a sacred

river on the highway, the red states hemorrhaging
across the plains, the company that manufactured
the candy unaware of how defective merchandise
without the letter “S” was shipped to feed Wisconsin
cattle, only candy the color of blood, sweet as kisses
blown from politicians. The secret to our hamburgers
is now revealed: feeding cows corn syrup is cheaper
than corn itself. The blacktop roils in beads that hang on
the neck of lake country, internecine symbols cutting
through valleys and springs, an entire nation quivering
like cows shaking for a sugar fix, starving for rainbow.

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February 1, 2017, Publication: Huffington Post, News Headline:

JESUS WASN’T A REFUGEE. HE JUST WANTED TO PAY HIS TAXES.

The apostles liked to share his boyhood

tales in the desert, from the manger to the cradle.

Is the bible original fake news?

My ex-wife was mad when I got our accountant

in the divorce. Passion is a story that is told

over time. So is religion. So is fear.

Render onto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.

God is paid in sacrifice: the small

and the tragic. Many were driven from homes.

Genocide is not the name of a rock band.

Jesus loved taking road trips. So did my ex-wife.

Memory is an escape without borders.

Love is not hard. It is a shelter from lies.

Fables are whips in the hands of the master.

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February 7, 2017, Publication: Washington Post, News Headline:

SHE FELT A ‘CRAWLING’ SENSATION. DOCTORS FOUND A LIVE COCKROACH IN

HER SKULL.

This metamorphosis is one of death,

either to visitor or host. This hunger

does not place any above reproach.

This journey clacks with determination

or despair. This sickness is not easily

diagnosed, swells in dreams and ride

shares. This truth is bait and to look

is to become and to become is choice.

This fear of invasion searches to nest,

whether wrapped in newsprint or skin.

This stethoscope swings and the drill

pushes through the bone and moist

passages, a birth of sorts, collective

dread about the terrorist in our heads.

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February 15, 2017, Publication: Huffington Post, News Headline:

AMERICA’S TOP FORTUNE COOKIE WRITER IS QUITTING

It wasn’t from writer’s block and fatigue, the lucky number

lottery winners and affairs tied to love is in the air fortunes.

It was because his final advice was for a nation, bloated

from its election last supper, confusing message received.

It was not the writer’s dreams, one per fortune, happiness

cut short in a rain of white paper shrapnel from angry Gods.

It was: You should not invite a fox to brunch and expect he’ll
stop with the eggs. Which came first: children or bloodshed?

It wasn’t the time I slapped the cookie on my forehead to open

it, sage wisdom trickling into my psyche and down my forehead.

It was the power of unrolled scrolls with crackling incantations

for we the people, our roundtable debate on the meaning of we.

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February 20, 2017, Publication: Reuters, News Headline:

GERMAN COMPANY SAYS TALKING DOLL IS NOT “ESPIONAGE DEVICE”

Cayla listens to chatter perhaps a little too well.

She asks questions. Important for the kids to tell
her their toughest regrets. Eyes are not windows
to the soul. They are mirrors for secrets exposed.

No one knew Cayla was a double agent, first

for parents worried about boyfriends and the thirst
for drugs. The nights were long on the cold shelves
and the dolls decided to make up alternative selves.

Some children became dolls. Some dolls became spies.

Some spies became children. Some memories were lies.
The press release was practiced by a boy kissing the lips
of his cordial doll, his paralyzed audience, a syllepsis

from the time she, he, or they could imagine a universe

beyond the swift stares and steps; the microphone whirs
in a world where it is fine to not believe or to know.
The pieces, too, tell the assembly of how to grow.

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February 27, 2017, Publication: Bustle, News Headline:

YOU CAN GO TO THE MOON IF YOU WANT & HERE’S HOW

You can launch a weightless tourist

and torch their money like rocket fuel.

The moon might be the barrel of a sun.

You can orbit a shy admirer afraid to look

at you like you might be an eclipse.

God points down with a waning finger.

You can board the traveling

apocalypse on its way to the dark side.

The aperture danced with our moods.

You can jettison your baggage and plant

your flag without declaring ownership.

The light never closed for good.

You can remember how to soar

in a cardboard box and moonwalk with glee.

The father’s a shimmering reflection of the son.

You can feel the tug of that other eye,

a forgotten twin pulling you into the night.

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March 3, 2017, Publication: New York Times, News Headline:

WHY WE BELIEVE OBVIOUS UNTRUTHS

My father once filmed a stop-action scene

of presents filling up under the tree, proof
that Santa Claus was invisible but real.
I stuck to my guns before I was given guns,

even before I became a teenage interrogator,

learning Russian from defectors, practicing
techniques to find the weak point in others
and exploit how the truth was malleable.

Our loved ones begin the parade with obvious

half-lies on how we look or that everything
will be fine when we don’t know if the future
holds mud pie or devil’s cake. We are told we

will be able to lift ourselves by our bootstraps,

one of the reasons why my parents kicked me
out and I joined the Army, too young to know
that belief is the paralyzing absence of fear,

dangerous in the way waving your hand over

a flame might change the annals of history.
Ideas are news. Ideas are insane. Ideas are art.
Inside us, inside the earth. Whistles in the dark.

We sprinkle secret desires into tales whipped

into batter, baked, and served to oohs and aahs;
taste the concoctions that make us purse our lips
from a disastrous recipe now mistaken for a kiss.

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March 13, 2017, Publication: Los Angeles Times, News Headline:

WE HAVE MICROWAVES THAT TURN INTO CAMERAS

We have a story that will make us

forget the death of something dear.

We have rows of pawned spy equipment

next to wedding rings with questionable mojo.

We have Vikings who reached Greenland

and disappeared. Wait, that one’s true.

We have a fever that comes from letting

a sickness take hold of the body. Everybody.

We have a river that is muddy and a river

that can be set on fire. It is all the same river.

We have a wall in our imagination. We have

a jury of fears. We have a countdown clock.

We have a collective amnesia and the person

next to us could be our enemy or lover.

We have a way with words. This is meant

as a compliment. This is likely a tragedy.

We have a device that will cook the world

if you shove it into too small a place.

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March 22, 2017, Publication: Komo News Seattle, News Headline:

GIANT DIE WASHES ASHORE ON LAKE COEUR D'ALENE

Perhaps Paul Bunyan was rolling bones to stake Babe

against enough food to last the winter, the errant throw

skidding over the Rockies and into the soup. Theories

on how lake monsters could transform into any object

hung on rearview mirrors don’t account for this die

castaway forever tumbling toward its opposite or twin.

Alien vessels were round until the Borg sucked us in,

this camouflage of games and chance rolling in waves,

an invasion of our psyche, lust for numbers, and desire

to be on the last square. Die spin in tiny fists and grand

stages, figures leaping over one another for the next

square, the contest, the land of just one winner.

Sometimes the die disappear in evening mist,

the makeshift worlds we build ephemeral and slick,

until that last passage onto shore, final roll stuck,

the deity of odds nowhere to be seen in the picture.

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March 30, 2017, Publication: CNN, News Headline:

HOW RUSSIA HACKS YOU

In Rasputin’s day it could have been with wine,

the intermingling of magic and mayhem, ribbons
of blood, a drowning of senses. For some it was
nuclear winter and monkeys launched into space,
gymnasts and chess masters with dizzying moves,
depressed masters of fiction in itinerant bloom.
Once in a Moscow apartment I had twelve shots
of vodka over dinner, skipping every other tumbler,
a lightweight in oblivion, laughter, and freezing
rain. Your phone has the might of a Bolshevik
when you are lost in multiple screens, windows
shorn between estates of big lies and tiny spies,
what your cramped fingers and the raw feet
of ballet dancers have in common after the show.

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April 5, 2017, Publication: ABC11 WTVD Raleigh, News Headline:

WOMAN FOUND WANDERING IN CALIFORNIA CLAIMS TO BE MERMAID

Discovered without clothes and damp from a source

other than the sky, a woman with webbed feet
discusses the origin of her transformative state
with journalists and police. In these days of borders
closing we are all mermaids, she sang just before
ruminating about the sidewalk that was a river
and a river that was source of the internet.
We had long ago lost our ability to distinguish
truth or to extinguish fire that smoldered
from our exhaustion. Before long we saw
mermaids everywhere: riding rockets to overleveraged
real estate that even our president can’t sell,
on milk cartons as the logo and the missing mythical
creature on back, or was that the venti tail on the grande
torso on the small coffee cup? The generals might
know or else it could be another ruse to hide
the cabal of foreign mermaids looking to keep
global warming a secret so the sea can be the arbiter
of life rather than the pool that reflects our nature.

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April 10, 2017, Publication: Paste Magazine, News Headline:

YOU’RE NOT MAD AT UNITED AIRLINES; YOU’RE MAD AT AMERICA

You don’t hate the companies we keep.

You hate the endless mission to make us smile.

You don’t hate Mondays.

You hate the uniforms that hide our bulges.

You don’t hate your boss.

You hate the drawer that keeps your coffee cup prisoner.

You don’t hate the apocalypse.

You hate this awkward engaged to be engaged phase.

You don’t hate the hot towels up front.

You hate holsters that have never known loneliness.

You don’t hate the crew.

You hate the cries of those carried away.

You don’t hate God.

You hate the metallic angel circling the runway.

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April 19, 2017, Publication: Scientific American, News Headline:

BIRDS NESTS USED TO LOOK MORE LIKE FORTRESSES

My daughter just failed her driving test.

The cradle of the nest allows for easier
delivery of food and fledgling flight.
Worried about a call, a rude awakening.
My son just walked seven miles playing
Pokémon Go. The dangers of predators
can strike the hatchlings from any angle.
Worried he won’t look up in his crossing.
My wife just got her green card. The rules
of what keeps you close to loved ones
are in flux, flights to hunt for sustenance.
Worried a hawk can strike in customs.
I just learned about the degenerative disease
in my back. The aching of nerves, the notes
of birds outside keeping me sane on bed rest.
Worried about the cracked buttress of myself.

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April 25, 2017, Publication: Washington Post, News Headline:

THE WALL IS GOING TO GET BUILT

A wall cannot have just one

side but it can exist in air.

A wall of TVs in a department

store can tell every kind of story.

A wall can be commissioned

by cries and mortared by lies.

A wall was once built to save China

from aliens and Matt Damon in a ponytail.

A wall as tiny as a phone can stop

a parent from getting to know a child.

A wall cannot be built that will resurrect

sock hops and communists on trial.

A wall of Lincoln logs can teleport me

to when I constructed cowboy fairy tales.

A wall is not a room to rest our fears,

not a heart with four chambers.

A wall can crumble a nation

even if one or the other is strong.

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April 30, 2017, Publication: Salon, News Headline:

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AND WE KNOW IT

I haven’t been sleeping and the only REM I get

is listening to their last album with original lineup,
surprised by my sadness, the end of harmony.

The scientists agree that there have never been

more ways for the world to end, earth toasted
like a marshmallow, plague, bombs, lust, greed.

Our new sheriff has a posse and tweets to us

how his guns are quick and his gigantic hands
will swat cowards from reclaiming their land.

A computer update destroyed all my playlists

and a ghost me stays up late humming lost tunes.
One scientist warns how tiny copters, the size

of coins, can spin and target millions of heads.

The sheriff’s gun is so big that it will destroy
the town, the mountains, the rivers, the moon.

The soundtrack of youth is dangerous to recreate.

The loaded gun begs to be released, a cocky thing.
Our own fuck you, the countdown clock, points up.

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