January 3, 2023
Seat
It almost feels unfair:
the beauty of the spot
being criticized away.
By me. What peasants did the vast
and lovely grounds displace? Or do
their descendants still tug
their forelocks? The hologram, robot
or goddess deflects
these questions. Inside
the House, the art was well
and personally chosen, books
look read, the past is only
mildly cited, signs
of gentle thoughtful living spread
over chaises … Incalculable
wealth, I growl, not having to invite
paying crowds or make
a spectacle of itself.
Immune to any human remark,
she shrugs her marble shoulders:
“Someone like you lives here.”
​
___
© the author
by Frederick Pollack
Author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure and Happiness, both Story Line Press; the former reissued in 2022 by Red Hen Press. Two collections of shorter poems, A Poverty of Words, (Prolific Press, 2015) and Landscape with Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Pollack has appeared in Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Magma (UK), Bateau, Fulcrum, Chiron Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, among others. Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire Review, Mudlark, Rat’s Ass Review, Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, and others.