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 publisher and editor-in-chief of Poetries in English Magazine.