AMERICAN OPTIMISM
The door leads to no room.
You walk through and back without arrival.
I won’t get political, only sad
that a body is a dying thing.
How to love a dying thing? They ask
on the lawns of the university,
only to be wagoned off in snow’s agenda.
As if I could do less harm than others,
I dream of prize money. Nothing immoral,
only human, about preservation,
which is how the invasive species grows
into war profiteers—and before that,
petty tea thieves, and before that,
cons of neighborly trade. But my favorite
is from a paleolithic scholar who
said we lived in the mouths of caves—
couldn’t even brave going deeper—
and took up painting our hands
on the walls like children today
mark their year. That the world was big,
and we were small impressions
seeking ourselves again.
ON ACADEMIC LIFE
In my opinion, roach pilgrimages.
In my opinion, manhood splitting in half with hands.
In my opinion, the bog of impressionable minds.
In my opinion, proposed self-immolation.
In my opinion, bleak parades.
In my opinion, a fan’s un-dampening hell.
In my opinion, the courtyard’s smoking asylum.
In my opinion, reviewed evaluations.
In my opinion, dejected umpire.
In my opinion, the molting of earnest.
WHITNEY KOO is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University and the Founder/Editor of Gasher Press. She holds a PhD in English-Creative Writing from Oklahoma State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Los Angeles Review, Colorado Review, Seneca Review, American Literary Review, Heavy Feather Review, Bayou Review, and others. Find her at www.whitneykoo.com.
VELIBOR BACO was born 1985 in Bosnia. The writer studied law in Salzburg, Austria. Currently living in Vienna, Austria he paints abstracts and writes German and English poetry and prose and creates abstract paintings, digital art, and music.
