Rochel Loden

THE OVERMEN

All night I dreamt of Xaverio Reyes
and Gerhardt Pym, how a simple

kiss from them, the scantest dollop
of their flaming Christmas pudding

might refuel a mid-sized city
for the time it takes to fall asleep

whispering their names. Godspeed
the nascent Übermen, our etherlords

so kind they phone from chilly
aeroplanes returning from Geneva or

Saigon. Oh speak to us, devoted
friends! What news from Redmond

and the foreign climes? Is this a jug
of Kool-Aid that you bring, m'lords?

The lost boys drink it and they sing,
they sing. Think you, luftmensch,

to storm the fastness in this wind?
Here is a Stone Age ax, a catapult,

a battering ram. Ten thousand lines
of code fly through your hands.

 

"My Domain" and "The Overmen" first appeared in Lit; "Affidavit" in American Letters & Commentary. "Affidavit" also appears in the chapbook, Affidavit (Pomegranate Press), with illustrations by Tad Richards. Rachel Loden's book Hotel Imperium won the Contemporary Poetry Series competition of the University of Georgia Press and was named one of the ten best poetry books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review. She has also published several chapbooks, including The Last Campaign (Hudson Valley Writers' Center/Slapering Hol Press) and Affidavit (Pomegranate Press), which is also notable for the marvelous, gruesome illustrations by Tad Richards.

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