Verse Wisconsin‘s latest online issue is out, “It’s Political.”  Among the many fine pieces, they’ve chosen to print the sequence of the rise and inevitable downfall of the King of Milwaukee from I got off the train at Ash Lake.  The poems are paired with short films I made for the King about two of the sections.  You can check it all out here.  If you haven’t yet read Verse Wisconsin, treat yourself to some of the best poetry from Wisconsin and beyond.

Here’s one of the sections to give a sense of His Highness:

The King of Milwaukee wore a live fish
as a necktie.  It was a northern pike,
and when it snapped, he fed it
slivers of citrus.  The villagers
ignored the pike when he spoke.
They ignored his hands
like old cuts of meat,
his one leg longer than the other.
But then there was his head:
his hair a thunderstorm of stress,
and his crown a garter snake
bulged by a digesting frog,
a lazy halo of scales.