Idol Conjectures
What if we ate round tofu on the night of the full moon
What if everyone just refused to drive cars unless they ran on art nouveau solar panels
What if we responded to all work emails after 5 pm with a cake recipe or a movie suggestion What if
Robots started writing poetry and forming exclusive literary cliques for robot neosurrealism robot confessionalism
What if Elvis really is alive on the island of Elba about to claim he’s the rightful Emperor of the French wearing an outfit halfway between his spangled white jumpsuit and Napoleon’s dress uniform would you be a groupie for his Hundred Days concert tour till his final gig at Waterloo
What if they cloned Mozart and he decided to become a professional wrestler
What if all the animals are planning a bloody uprising masterminded by ostriches with Gothic moths as couriers
What if legislatures only drafted laws and the entire population voted yes or no online
What if national borders just gradually disintegrated from neglect
What if to be or not to be really were the question for our whole species
What if we launched all nukes into space in the direction of the Horsehead Nebula
What if there were another version of you that could stroll the Earth experiencing different things but fundamentally similar
What if there were a hundred of those beings
Billions of them
What if there already are
Zack Rogow
BUMPERSTICKERS
My other car is a 1930s platinum cigarette case
My other car is a MIDDLE-AGED muppet
My other car speaks Sanskrit WITH A HINT OF A POLISH ACCENT
My other car has a crush on your OTHER CAR
My other car played Hamlet IN COLLEGE
My other car is a chain smoker
My other car RUNS ON BIOdiesel poetry
My other car is Presocratic
My other car thinks IN ALGEBRA
My other car WAS AN Abstract Expressionist BUT NOT ANY MORE
My other car is an honor student at Cardinal Newman Middle School
MY OTHER CAR WOULD RATHER BE SURFING
Honk if you like my other car
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO IN MY OTHER CAR
MY OTHER CAR FOR PRESIDENT
My other car ASPIRES TO UNIVERSALITY
MY OTHER CAR VISITS VENICE IN ITS DREAMS
My other car is BARELY a memory NOW
ONE LINE POEMS
Proverb
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single schlep.
Not Likely
“I’m the most modest person in the whole world.”
Post-Socratic Philosophy
Know thyselves.
What Does “Nostalgia” Spell Backwards?
I miss the things that will exist in the future.
Once
You only live once, especially at my age.
A Perfume Called Eternity at Macy’s Department Store
The saleswoman rushed up to me with a spray bottle and said, “Would you like to try Eternity?”
For information about Zack Rogow and to read other poems, see issue N. 1 of TDM https://www.thedreamingmachine.com/what-the-world-needs-now-and-other-poems-zack-rogow/
Featured image: Photo by Zack Rogow.
