Poetry | October 07, 2026

The Dissident

Above the roofs at dawn, the flags are flying.
Downstairs, soiled lives go on in the laundromat.
And in newspapers, people keep vaguely dying
in ten-point font while some far bureaucrat
nods off at his desk reading The Art of War.
Lights off, alone, you pace as the fan blades
spin in Spenglerian cycles above the floor.
The TV flickers on. When darkness fades,
shadows advance like lines the generals draw.
And you are like that polemic censors stifle,
or the method actor who without a flaw
performs his role in the crosshairs of a rifle.
In anxious fantasies where a secret slips
out (the surveillant focuses his lens),
you are the one name on the officials’ lips,
at midnight, when the questioning begins.

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