Nobody believes the news, left, right,
are only dance steps falling over their own feet.
Maybe we should divine by casting runes
like the Grecian oracle, or reading sheep entrails,
or grandmothers whose bad knee
always told them when a storm was coming,
or was making the air ache.
When marsh lights look at us,
We know we’re lost, news of
the two-headed Martian baby is for
the suburban housewife who can’t
have children. There’s nothing new
on the news.
The devil is lonely.
He wants us to do something about it.
Julia Vinograd is a Berkeley street poet. She has published 50 books of poetry, and won the American Book Award of The Before Columbus Foundation. She has three poetry CD collections: Bubbles and Bones, Eye of the Hand, and The Book Of Jerusalem. She received a BA from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. She received the 2004 Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award from the City of Berkeley.
Editorial art by Elle Aviv Newton.
