Poetry

Susan Melkisethian photo

 

By

Dotty LeMieux

 

 

 

Confirmation Bias

 

 

Diana says – I need some distraction

from the interaction

 

So what about the woman who sleeps on the floor

of the post office

Gentle Jim in the surf shed

The guy who can’t keep his pants up

or budget his dole?

 

Senator Mitchell, you have become beside

the point

with your talking points

Yes, this is happening right now

Right here

Here                            Hear

 

See something, say something

 

Diana of the naughty daughters

 

Sexual assault yeah it happens

Sometimes

Somewhere

 

But not on the floor

of the Senate

The floor of cloakroom

or the Post office

The dark of the woods

The glare of the beach

 

They call it confirmation bias

See what you expect

Hear what you are predisposed to hear

Speak the truth you want to believe

 

The fact is there are more than three monkeys – explains Diana

to her strangely quiet daughters

 

 

 

Confirmation Bias is a form of Exquisite Corpse and was inspired and partially written by Diana McQuaid, a California poet whose chapbook Invisible Future Chickens was published by Smithereens Press, and who has walked the Bolinas cliffs, beaches and dirt roads for more than 40 years.

 

 

 

 

 

Ones and Zeros

 

 

The news is on tv and we’re eating

steak, rare for us,

and drinking wine across the room

from where the TV drones

 

All ones and zeros

Pinging cell to cell and back

across oceans

The wine I drink is pink,

Like urine and blood mixed together

It’s not bad

 

It’s all 1s and 0s

I remind myself

Digital representation

traveling through cables

deep under rivers and oceans and mountains

It’s not real fingers

lopped off one

by one

In back room embassy

In broad daylight

While music plays

 

Just ones and zeros

Not the one they call president

celebrating assaults

on reporters

here and abroad

Not heard

not seen

not spoken

 

We are eating the red insides

of a cow

bloody but dead

My wine is pink, the color

of blood and piss

sweet on the tongue

 

Just ones and zeros

Pixels

The TV is just a box

across the room

It might have happened possibly

Probably, maybe

Who knows?

 

Lots of ones and zeros in one-hundred billion

dollars

Lots of paid for hotel rooms

Floors of them

Tax free

Virtually

 

It’s all TV reality shows

Don’t believe your lying eyes

 

The meat is grey and still bleeds

quietly on the plate

Wine drunk

TV off

 

Just ones and zeros

Nothing to see

Nothing to hear

Nothing to say

 

Like monkeys censored

by shotgun blasts

deep in the make-believe jungle

 

 

 

Dotty LeMieux

Dotty LeMieux has published three chapbooks: Let us not Blame Foolish Women, Tombouctou Press; The Land, Smithereens Press; and Five Angels, Five Trees Press. She published the literary journal, The Turkey Buzzard Review for several years in the late 1970’s, early 80’s. Currently, she lives in northern California with her husband and two dogs where she practices law and helps progressive candidates with their election to office.

Dotty is proud to have been a Bernie Sanders delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention.