Status Update by Chris Campanioni | Really System: Issue Ten

Status Update

Chris Campanioni

here come the warm jets
returning or getting back
something I hardly
remember what
happened on the inside
air-conditioned stillness
of a burning private plane

halfway in &
in need of your direction

some sage advice
I found at the very end
of a tea bag’s string
you’ll go much further
in life or into life
as if this is a video
game we enter as if
with change or will
we won’t
die alone surrounded
by so many
moving images

as if, as if clueless
as to how or when
I come to my
senses vis-à-vis
suggestions of my status
update, in haiku:

public pool, flash
drive, server crash
sure thing

Chris Campanioni's “Billboards” poem that responded to Latino stereotypes and mutable—and often muted—identity in the fashion world was awarded the 2013 Academy of American Poets Prize and his novel Going Down was selected as Best First Book at the 2014 International Latino Book Awards. He edits PANK and lives in Brooklyn. Embrace the Death of Art.

ISSUE TEN: Satyrs Yell "Me!" | next poem →