Ruth Holzer

Infotainment

It’s getting harder to follow the plot:
the strait is open, the strait is closed,
the war is over, or maybe not,
deadlines canceled, reimposed.

The strait is open, the strait is closed.
You shoot us and we bomb you.
Deadlines canceled, reimposed.
I’ll keep on doing what I do

whether you shoot us or we bomb you.
When players take their final call,
I’ll keep on doing what I do
since every curtain’s bound to fall.

The players take their final call,
leaving us a ruined scene.
Every curtain’s bound to fall
and darkness touches every screen,

leaving us a ruined scene.
It’s harder now to follow the plot
as darkness touches every screen.
The war is over, or maybe not. 

Ruth Holzer is the author of ten chapbooks, most recently, “On the Way to Man in Moon Passage” (dancing girl press) and “Float” (Kelsay Books). Her poems have appeared in Blue Unicorn, California Quarterly, Freshwater, POEM, Slant and elsewhere. A multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she has won the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Prize, the Tanka Splendor Award and the Ito En Art of Haiku Contest Grand Prize.