A POEM by OZZYKA FARAH

Cash Cow

in cold, bastard night

blanket draped over

my face like a veil

I half-dreamt the world

in a teacup

in this chamomile dream

money was replaced with cheese

– it was just

as arbitrary

the cash cows mucked about

cloven-hoofed well-fed

this ruminant animal, chewing the cud

– blowing wind from anus or mouth, destroying the ether –

has eclipsed the significance of the                            honeybee

those with both, the financially fertile

(&/or the overdramatic)                             can bathe in milk & honey

rightfully so the farmers

would have their say

they

would stimulate the economy

shape

the stock market, control destiny, ruin

lives

cattle,

the new money printers, would be sacred

like India

in this new type of economy

cheese is the root of all evil, the symbol of freedom

rappers would use the vocable

money as a metaphor for cheese

no more posing

with dollar notes, presidents

spread out                like                  a fan

“cheese rules everything

around me”

millions starving for cheddar, working sunup to sundown

around the clock, until the moon becomes the sun & is swallowed up again

Question: what if the moon was made of cheese?

on the right night

behind the wrought iron gates of the necropolis


imagine,

dancing on graves


hand-in-hand

under the milky way

galaxy

the hardened milk moon luminescent in coffin

-like         black death of the universe

the vault of heaven

if life is a rat race

a compliment is a mousetrap & I am never flattered

in the past, settlers set out on expeditions

stumbling upon El Dorado bountiful with gouda encrusted

streets palaces paved of grana-padano gorgonzola gondolas across

the azure

elsewhere King Midas with his gift-&-curse

turns his daughter into a gargantuan block

of brie

His curse unnoticed

at the California State Fair

somewhere not too far

away, Rumpelstiltskin is busy at the spindle

weaving straw into camembert


Ozzýka Farah is a poet, editor, and content writer from Sacramento, California. His work has recently been published or is forthcoming in CausewayLit, Penumbra Literary and Art Journal, Dots Publications, Alternate Route, and the Big A Little a anthology. He currently lives between Melbourne, Australia and London, United Kingdom. Instagram and Twitter: @ozzynapoleon.

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SIX POEMS by CATALINA BLAKE