Quetzalcoatl Sandoval and Ilya Kaminsky
                       

Come On Get Happy

I don’t know if I’m listening
to the Partridge Family or Los Lonely Boys:

Yevtushenko has 30,000 people
showing up to one of his readings,

seven scoundrels showed up to mock.
The State crucified Mayakovsky,

the same State is quite benevolent today,
but does not shy away from the nether regions.

Kaminsky rattles off his poetry machinegun style,
his high pitched reading voice startles my wife,

who shows no pity towards the deaf ---
God forbid that you be dumb.

Whatever it is we sing
has not come back to haunt us?

Sometimes you have to sugar-coat
the sugar.