Yes or No

Sonnet after Norman Rockwell's The Ouija Board

The Ouija Board by Norman Rockwell, 1920. Image: Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Will they reveal who killed the Kennedys,
double down on dark Christianity,
barter backwards in bad blood’s blasphemy,
hanging half-cocked hexes on heresy,

halos separating the church from state,
a pushed planchette asking are we there yet,
placating hell’s heads hankering for hate,
tainting times tucked inside life’s tourniquet,

the country cremating democracy,
not coming clean to dissect damaged dreams,
pinning limbs of a forked tongue fallacy,
negating nostalgia ripped at the seams,

and snuff spirits’ screams of sin if Rockwell
paints GOODBYE, Sympathy for the Devil?

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The italicized words are lyrics from “Sympathy for the Devil” by The Rolling Stones. Many thanks to the editors at Shot Glass Journal for first publishing this poem. For anyone interested, they only publish short poetry of 16 lines or less. They also published a second Norman Rockwell poem, and since it’s so short, I’m going to add it below.

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Girl Reading Palm by Norman Rockwell, 1921. Image: Wikiart

Date Before Deployment

Misfortune meanders,
riverbeds bleeding dry
lacerated lifelines,
a procession pooling in palms,
refusing a recruit’s return home,
disappearing in mirrors,
the grays of a ghost.

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