ARIANNA SEBO - POEMS

Arianna Sebo (she/her) is a poet and writer living in Southern Alberta with her husband, pug, and five cats. Her poetry can be found in Kissing Dynamite, The Coachella Review, Capsule Stories, and 45 Poems of Protest: The Pandemic. Follow her at AriannaSebo.com and @AriannaSebo on Twitter and Instagram.

​EVIL LAUGHTER

​Enjoying others’ anguish and
uneasiness
is that so wrong
it brings me joy to see them squirm
because they find me imposing
the mere mention of my name
ringing bells of alarm
in the primitive centres
of their brains
awesome
to have such power
purely maniacal
laughter erupts
from my belly
I get a kind of sick pleasure
from watching their wormy
squirmy bodies tense up when I
tease them with my presence and
transdimensional
evil laughter

​AFTER WORK AT THE NEWSPAPER

​Bedraggled mop of hair
clinking tin bangles
porous valleys of skin
lips like a railroad
tugging smoke from a cigarette
not delicately
but like she needs the nicotine
to breathe
she sports Birkenstocks
and you can see two wiry hairs
poking up from the knuckle on her right big toe
a hairy hallux
her black crepe skirt is covered in a layer of dust
most likely from the gravel road
she rode her Schwinn on that morning
though she rides her bike everywhere
she still has a potbelly
from the numberless vodka cokes
she drinks after work
at the newspaper

​CAPITAL DISAPPOINTMENT

​Scissor Wizards
hair whizzers extraordinaire
buzzers and bleachers
braiders and curlers
lady with headphones
greets me at the door
she barely acknowledges
I’m wearing no clothes
she must be listening to
a soap opera
on those phones
I watch her eyebrows
flicker
and
twitch
like a newly born caterpillar
I am disappointed there are
no customers today
I take to the streets
in the hope
that someone will
notice my
nakedness

​AVERAGE

​The photographer frames himself
in the shot
He is adept at creating self-portraits
slicking what little hair he has
back from his forehead
wishing his ear lobes weren’t so long
and his chin so stubby
He can create beautiful prints
having studied with the masters
He photographs the famous and rich
making them look more beautiful or
distinguished than the rest of us
He is an image technician
someone everyone in the spotlight needs
when you’re rich or beautiful
powerful or famous
nothing is worse than looking
normal
haggard
and average