If you are the speaker of the house, please close the window, we’re cold. When the market crashes, speaker, into what does it collapse? If you are the speaker of the house, tell me, is it really one out? It doesn’t feel one. It feels to me, speaker, in the negatives. No, the speaker of the house can not smell the citrus smoke from burning balsams wafting through the screen, and that’s precisely what got him the job. Speaker of the house, will you tell me if I live here or is this just a long, costly visit? Did you hear me, speaker, who isn’t? Liar, you are no speaker of this house—do you smell what’s coming from the stove? Would you say that’s gas? So called speaker of the house what were your constituents told? The speaker of the house should know about the feelings in the basement! Prove you are the speaker of the house and have a word with the washer, teach it reason. A small speech at the foreclosure should suffice, I mean do something, if only for optics. Read a poem, Jesus. If you are the speaker of the house make a gesture using the eight or nine snakes in the foundation, spin them around, turn them into the orangey, purplish ribbons of a fire sale. Is it true the landlord pays for her place less than what she charges for our dump, and she’s behind on rent? If you are the speaker of the house: lower the interest rates or give me liberty, give me insulin, get out of my face, speaker! Our realtor retired before we closed and, speaker, I fear something has been left open. Speaker tell me now, who bound and gagged you in the mudroom? The speaker of the apartment is a spider on its dark path across the carpet, and I can prove it, I can hear it moving, not that I can translate the future it forebodes. If you are the speaker of the house then declare a recess, mandate the remaking of your labyrinth, release me to the Ruddy Duck sanctuary. Speaker, spit it out—how much snow is required to muffle sirens? Just how much speech is mumbled in silence? If you are the speaker of the bungalow, tell me where my headlamp went, or else brighten when I approach so I can know home by quality of light alone. I made a mask from a deflated football thrown sidearm at the speaker’s heart, a yard whose gate latch never catches, lightning crashes, markets don’t. Speaker of the house, why have I been locked out of the great AirBnB in the sky. What did I miss, get wrong, ignore, over-analyze, speaker, you fucker, call a vote! I want to be blameless and at home. I want to see those hands in the air, speaker, your roof is on fire! If you are in fact the speaker of the house, tell me, do you know the code? If it’s 1-2-3-4-5 I’m going to be so mad that I am going to die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tyler Barton is the author of Eternal Night at the Nature Museum (Sarabande) and The Quiet Part Loud (Split/Lip). His fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, NANO Fiction, Copper Nickel, in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, and elsewhere. He lives in upstate New York where he serves as the program director for the Adirondack Center for Writing. Learn more at tsbarton.com. Find him @tylerbartonlol on Instagram.
Recent Posts
- These Are All the Tree Types We Passed on Our Two-Thousand-Four-Hundred-and-Ninety-Mile Drive to Bear Creek Rehab Center in Stevensville, Montana, When I Could Not Look at You
Sam Berman - Anti-Elegy
Julián Martinez - Silver Rectangle
Tom Snarsky - POEM FOR THE DAY THE US VETOED A CEASEFIRE IN GAZA
Sara Potocsny - Seven Stages to Sacrament
Noah Francis - deje mi tabla en nueva york porque no quería pagar al spirit 60 dólares
md wheatley