Wittgenstein's Red Poem by A.K. Cola

A hound infected with mange.
Discovered by his owner
Circling a picnic table
Stationed in his backyard-
A joyful bewilderment,
Attached to his motion
As if he was on an invisible
Merry-go-round. He prepared
His shotgun,
Before firing
Faced the clouds
Questioned the sky
"How would you define
The color red? "

A woman was arrested
For prostitution
Jailers searched her body
For contraband
But missed a permanent marker
She hid somewhere,
Privately.
On the walls of her tomb
She wrote in a variety of fonts
"How would you define
The color red? "

Inside the confines
Of his indirect exile,
Spinoza observed ants
Marching from
Rolling hills-
To manicured lawns
To pedicured toes
He recited
To his God
And his blank page
"How would you define
The color red? "

Confrontational verbs?
Crows lusting after roadkill?
Charitable accomplishments
In a consumer-based culture?



An ancestor
Of royalty was stabbed
During a plot of regicide
He used a ball of toilet paper
Lifted from the gas station's
Bathroom,
To dab the blood away.
He peered at the tissue,
Two red lips winked at him.