Influencer

by Sterling Davis


​
​​
 ​
​Prophet without followers 
Elitist without cash 
This low rent demigod: 
His great fear is of silence. 
Silence, too is a metaphysics 
In that garret, in that sarcophagus 
Manikin can scream as viburnums. 
​
The screaming viburnums 
The jardin du luxembourg. The shrieks. 
Even to the Quai d’Orsay. Sometimes I 
Think about cataclysms. Once I read 
American Poetry Review and nearly 
Disappeared. At Palais Royale it was 
Poet Lore while others scrolled.  

​At the Etruscan exhibit it was Quarterly 
West or was that at Centre Pompidou? 
I checked my Instagram--the Influencer  
In Acne Studio. Tasteful, I thought: next 
It was TriQuarterly. Joyful tears, the pain  
Of my latest rejection epistle; I turned to 
The translations. My newsfeeds only talks ​

Of cataclysms. The glare from my ten year 
Old iPhone among Hôtel de Crillion or was 
It the Ritz. I thought about Bar Hemingway. 
A ghost streamed by. The man at the bar 
Was wearing Tom Ford. Oud Wood? I asked 
Oud wood, the Bois de Boulogne. The  
Creaking trestles. The starlit, daylit morn. ​

​
Sterling Davis is the editor of Poetries in English Magazine.