MN Poetry: Brad Liening’s “The President…”
Brad Liening is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He's the author of four chapbooks, including We Are Doomed: Dispatches from the City of the Future; Oblivion, More; and Are You There God? It's Me, Whitney Houston. Here's his poem "The President of the World Feels Lonely" from his latest collection, Ghosts and Doppelgängers.
The President of the World Feels Lonely
The President of the World
sits by himself in his office.
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He looks at his phone.
It's been a hard day.
He looks at the drapes,
which are very heavy
and thick and probably
cost a whole lot of money.
He gets up, goes outside,
digs a hole in the rose garden
and crawls in, where he waits
for someone to find him.
In the hole, his sadness grows
like a black sail in the wind.
- "The President of the World Feels Lonely" by Brad Liening, as it appears in Ghosts and Doppelgängers, published by Lowbrow Press. Reprinted here with permission from the publisher.