Total Liquidation (Zagreb)

Jake Romm

 

Total liquidation.

Everything must go.

Complete and ruthless clearance of everything existing.

Standing alone in the middle of Zagreb.

At last, the eyes melt too.

Listening to the woodpecker clicking of the crosswalk
signals. Listening to the soft tapping of the rain.

At last, the eyes melt too.

The old Hapsburg shrines sinking sorry dead
beneath the slinking webs of puffy stars.

Old statues with faded plaques
and bird-shit stains and blackening brass.

Say it quickly now, say it hushed
as a prayer and as a curse:

Everything that passes must also pass away.

 


Jake Romm’s writing and photography have appeared in The New Inquiry, Humble Arts Foundation, Ain’t Bad, Loosen Art Gallery, Dodho Magazine, Fisheye Gallery, MAP6, Lightbox, Across the Margin, and Reading The Pictures. He currently lives in Maine. 

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