A Poem by MK Punky

When the lies and hypocrisies and cruelties comprising the daily news
became too much for her to bear
she disconnected from her networks
and retreated to a grassy meadow
in a thoroughly Thoreauvian gesture of abdication
substituting amorphous clouds for concrete avarice
romping dogs for rambling pundits
birdsong for Supreme Court testimony

Grounding the soil’s electrical charge in her supine spine
she would admit freely to skeptical interlocutors
I too am no scientist
yet her corporeal senses
reliable reporters all these years
told her the truth about our climate
evident to everyone who spends all day outside
staring at the sky
while those who scheme to rob women of their rights
spew foul air from diseased lungs and overstuffed colons
artlessly denying the conflagration
burning down their republic

A founder of the 80’s hardcore band The Clitboys and the poet laureate of Vista Street Community Library in Los Angeles, MK PUNKY is the author of many books, most recently a memoir of housing a homeless man, The Unexpected Guest (Diversion Books). “Inside Out” is an excerpt from MK’s collection The Year of When, 365 daily poems beginning with the same word.