Clash   of   the   Titans

Once monsters rose from the sea
it seemed pretty silly to worry

about routine legislative gridlock,
the GDP or the status of the dollar,

but old habits die hard—
just like sea monsters, it turns out.

They figured prominently
in the next year’s election—

candidates were asked their position
on sea monsters, on people

being eaten in the night,
people resorting to eating people,

which we heard was starting to occur
where food supplies had been consumed

or decimated by the sea monsters’
fire-breathing progeny, the highways

already cratered by air strikes
hoping to stop them as

they clawed their way
inland from both the coasts.

I can’t remember what the candidates
said, but then again I never do.

What I do remember is the color
of the sea monster’s tusks as they speared

tankers and semis on the highway,
how their swept their tentacles

through buildings almost gracefully,
fire spilling over the countryside,

and how when the smoke cleared
devastating sunsets were revealed,

ringing over the entire country,
the little islands of horrible death

and the richly fortified cities.
I remember voter turnout hit an all-time

low, and the election wasn’t very close.
I remember thinking that these aren’t

sea monsters, exactly, and we should
stop calling them that.

~~~

Nightmare   on   Wall   Street

One night there was an outbreak of black top hats.
Children woke up wearing them with a smile; the indigent
and people sleeping on the street had warmer dreams.
Those of us who were still out remarked on how dapper
we looked and took turns buying each other drinks.
Meanwhile blood-curdling screams could be heard
from mansions all around the city and into the countryside.
The top hats disappeared in the morning as suddenly
as they had appeared, but it’s still something we talk about.
People come up to me all the time and ask if I remember
what I was wearing the night of the blood-curdling screams.

~~~~~

Brad Liening lives and works in Minneapolis. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Anti-, Conduit, Forklift Ohio, and elsewhere, and his first book is Ghosts and Doppelgangers (Lowbrow Press).