NVN Monday: THE DREAD
by William Aarnes
after reading Stanley’s Kunitz’s translations of Anna Akhmatova
for the contributors to The New Verse News
“He’s Threatened To Put Them In Jail”: Joe Biden Tells Katie Couric That Journalists Have Told Him Of Their Fears If Donald Trump Returns To White House —Deadline, February 22, 2024
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Of course, they will jail the journalists first but the time will come when you will pass your days aware that the authorities are letting you live a circumscribed life, a couple of years of the woman at the window of the apartment across the street always fixing a stare on you when you draw your curtains open an intimidating reminder that whatever you do on your cell and laptop is under surveillance, your movements tracked, a then two, three years in, impossible to miss, the agents in the parked car always quick to get out to openly follow you, one just a few steps above you on the escalator and never standing more than four people away on a crowded subway, you beginning to wish you dared to confront them with your puzzlement about how much they are paid, the time at last coming when, one of your shadows sipping coffee four tables away, a dear friend will fail to show for the lunch where you planned to lie that you are too scared to write any more poems, not even in your head, your friend not responding to texts, you lingering over your salad, dreading the escorted ride home.
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William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.