Nightmares of the Future
By
R. Elliot Martin
Her new voice
Her scream emerges slowly,
Hands clasped to her face,
The girl in red has has suffered
A tragedy unimaginable.
Behind her, her mother lies dead,
Ghostly white, and still as the bed
That supported her final moments on earth
Her scream is silent, but present
Eyes larger than her hands,
tearing out her young orange hair.
A tragedy unimaginable.
Behind her, her mother was young.
Death was not kind, she suffered long.
In her final days on earth.
The mother at peace, her daughter despairs.
In the rear, loved ones mill, and a father’s will
has left him to his fears.
A tragedy unimaginable.
The suffering of the lowly
from another time and place
has brought ghosts to this painting
In their final days on earth.
Red and orange in the girl’s dress
give way to black and white
The child has lost her final comfort
Screams as death wins over life.
Reality unimaginable.
(Ekphrastic- based on The Dead Mother and Her Child by Edward Munch)
GPT2: Judgment Day
Deepfakes, AI poetry,
A portrait of Robert E. Lee
shaking hands with Bill Murray.
Are they daisies, pushing up through the dirt
sprouting, growing, and blooming?
Or are they daggers
stabbing into a beating heart,
And creating our doom?
Punk at Fifty
at the garage for an oil change
they’re playing Ramones music on tv.
Joey
Johnny
Dee Dee
Tommy
Starved all their lives
But led a revolution.
CBGB shirts
at JC Penney.
Fifty years of punk
and Walmart has bought its soul.
I, too, played starvation gigs
in bars and coffeehouses,
busked for change on streetcorners,
and shredded in theaters,
stages, and venues
now long gone.
In my youth, I carried a red Fender
with fire on the leather guitar strap.
At midlife, I carry my “spare tire” where the guitar once hit.
Joey
Johnny
Dee Dee
Tommy
died young, no older than me,
with my knees too banged up for mosh pits.
Now, with more love than rage invested in the world,
I take off my suit, and pick up my books.
Like the Ramones, I, too, have joined the system.
We’ve grown old together,
and have too much wisdom
to fight the power.
R. Elliott Martin is a poet, Civil War historian, rock and blues musician, and graduate student in history living in Richmond, Virginia. Originally from Southwest Virginia, he currently attends Virginia Commonwealth University where he finished his undergrad and minored in creative writing. His poetry has appeared in Poetry Breakfast, ARTEMIS Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, The Copperfield Review, and elsewhere.
By
R. Elliot Martin
Her new voice
Her scream emerges slowly,
Hands clasped to her face,
The girl in red has has suffered
A tragedy unimaginable.
Behind her, her mother lies dead,
Ghostly white, and still as the bed
That supported her final moments on earth
Her scream is silent, but present
Eyes larger than her hands,
tearing out her young orange hair.
A tragedy unimaginable.
Behind her, her mother was young.
Death was not kind, she suffered long.
In her final days on earth.
The mother at peace, her daughter despairs.
In the rear, loved ones mill, and a father’s will
has left him to his fears.
A tragedy unimaginable.
The suffering of the lowly
from another time and place
has brought ghosts to this painting
In their final days on earth.
Red and orange in the girl’s dress
give way to black and white
The child has lost her final comfort
Screams as death wins over life.
Reality unimaginable.
(Ekphrastic- based on The Dead Mother and Her Child by Edward Munch)
GPT2: Judgment Day
Deepfakes, AI poetry,
A portrait of Robert E. Lee
shaking hands with Bill Murray.
Are they daisies, pushing up through the dirt
sprouting, growing, and blooming?
Or are they daggers
stabbing into a beating heart,
And creating our doom?
Punk at Fifty
at the garage for an oil change
they’re playing Ramones music on tv.
Joey
Johnny
Dee Dee
Tommy
Starved all their lives
But led a revolution.
CBGB shirts
at JC Penney.
Fifty years of punk
and Walmart has bought its soul.
I, too, played starvation gigs
in bars and coffeehouses,
busked for change on streetcorners,
and shredded in theaters,
stages, and venues
now long gone.
In my youth, I carried a red Fender
with fire on the leather guitar strap.
At midlife, I carry my “spare tire” where the guitar once hit.
Joey
Johnny
Dee Dee
Tommy
died young, no older than me,
with my knees too banged up for mosh pits.
Now, with more love than rage invested in the world,
I take off my suit, and pick up my books.
Like the Ramones, I, too, have joined the system.
We’ve grown old together,
and have too much wisdom
to fight the power.
R. Elliott Martin is a poet, Civil War historian, rock and blues musician, and graduate student in history living in Richmond, Virginia. Originally from Southwest Virginia, he currently attends Virginia Commonwealth University where he finished his undergrad and minored in creative writing. His poetry has appeared in Poetry Breakfast, ARTEMIS Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, The Copperfield Review, and elsewhere.
