Three Poems

Nathaniel Duggan

Brief Thoughts on Mars

An election came and went. I was

in love, there were grasshoppers singing

with their thighs. Our blood

was blue Gatorade while a supervillain

conquered unnamed planets—

this was late summer

and angels were attacking.

We were at war with a desert

and the sand kept piling back.

Like any other night

the stars fell,

the stars kept falling.

Like a Dog Returning to Vomit

I am going to kill myself

so hard today

with juggled chainsaws

and torches imbibed

orally. I will destroy

the entire nation of me

with a nuclear bomb

unless demands are met.

I am a bug in late summer

whose shell has burst.

I have lost track

of the days of my bender.

I am going to confuse

the part for its whole,

the scrambling ants

for the hill they refuse

to die on.

Sometimes I Wish I Was a Shark: Pulling the World Apart with Nothing But My Teeth

Your last thought is a perilous one.

Another murder goes unsolved,

another planet is built

upon steel and suffering,

another Friday. Thank God

it’s Friday. In a dead November

all that remains of any bug

is its shell, and everyone falls

asleep after the office pizza party,

drool pooling on their keyboards,

circuitry frying, the company stock

plunged. Your sadness is deep

as any crack in the ocean;

at its bottom gather

glow-in-the-dark squid.

Nathaniel Duggan is a writer from Maine. His work can be found on https://neutralspaces.co/nathanielduggan/. He has a twitter @asdkfjasdlfjd.