Fake: A Fable

By R. ZAMORA LINMARK

Fake alternative facts
Fake Big Brother, bisexual bystanders, blogs, boobs, bobos, blow-jobs, Born-Agains
Fake clowns, CCTV beheadings, chlamydia and climate change hysteria
Fake democratic doppelgangers, drive-by death squads, double-dead buffets
Fake emojis, ejaculating cows, ejected United passengers, erectile dysfunction do-it-yourself kits
Fake faux furs, fat-free, Fentanyl-induced full moonsFake gods in Gucci knock-offs
Fake hashish hashtags, hot dogs, human rights violations
Fake in-your-face-Facebook trolls, Instagram idiots
Fake jungle DNAs, Jurassic jujubes, justice-loaded guns
Fake killings, Korean missiles and Louis Vuittons
Fake liars, liberals, likers
Fake Made-in-China presidents, maximum security measures, meth-heads
Fake national press releases, NGOs, nail claws
Fake originals, organic orgasms, Oxford diplomas
Fake phantom pains, props, proclamations, propagandas, prosthetics
Fake quotable quote quotas
Fake rape jokes, resignations, rehab resurrections, Republic of Free-Deranged Chickens
Fake senators, soy, SPAM-colored sphincters, speculative fictionists
Fake terrorist wannabes, transgender allies, toddler tantrums
Fake universe of unicorns
Fake virgins and vigilantes
Fake weather-proofed wigs and whitening products
Fake Xanadu
Fake Zeligs, zirconias, and zombies
Fake you
Fake you too.

 

[Purchase Issue 18 here.]

R. Zamora Linmark is a Manila-born poet, novelist, and playwright. His latest poetry collection is Pop Vérité. This Fall, Delacorte/Random House will be publishing The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart, his first novel for young adults. He divides his time between Honolulu, Hawaii, and Baguio, Philippines.

Fake: A Fable

Related Posts

Blue cover of There is Still Singing in the Afterlife

Four Poems by JinJin Xu

JINJIN XU
my mother, my father. / Her skinny blue wrists, his ear caressing a cigarette. In the beginning, / it is already too late, but there is hunger & no time / to waste. All they need are six hands, three mouths, a clockwork / yearning for locks of their own, windows square & fresh.

black and white photo of a slim man's body, arm outstretched from the bbody

LitFest 2025 Excerpts: Video Poems by Paisley Rekdal

PAISLEY REKDAL
On the seventh day / of the seventh month, magpies / bridge in a cluster of black and white // the Sky King crosses to meet his Queen, time tracked / by the close-knit wheeling / of stars. I watch. You come // to me tonight, drunk on wine / and cards, nails ridged black / with opium

Mantra 5

KRIKOR BELEDIAN
from channel to channel / the lengthening beauty of shadows that float and bow down / and suck at the stones and planks / of the damp, bitter fog / of loneliness, / stone horses let loose their golden neighs / and the waters transform to / stained glass