“The Kingdom Comes Like a Joke” & “Manifesto”

PoetryIssue 33
Written By Alyssa Stadtlander

→ PUBLISHED IN ISSUE NO. 33: FALL/WINTER 2024

 

The Kingdom Comes Like a Joke

the kingdom comes like a joke
told by a child, littered with

what do you get and what happens now
and how many how many how many

like a game
of lost and found

things like pennies and seeds and not enough
money for lunches and pearls

and those wide swaths of wheat fields
that shimmer like oil when the sun goes

down. to enter the kingdom, you must come
as a child, and every question

has the same answer sung again and again
and now, when the father’s runaway son goes

home. can you hear it, ringing, somehow
from the hidden places we deem insignificant,

the secret proclaimed
from voices that didn’t know they could sing

Alyssa Stadtlander

Alyssa Stadtlander is a writer and actress based in Boise, Idaho. Her work is published in Ekstasis, Mudfish Magazine, Fathom, and others, along with several anthologies, including An Homage to Soren Kierkegaard: A Poetry Anthology, edited by Dana Gioia and Mary Grace Mangano. Her poem, “You, Moved,” appears as text in the chamber music piece, “To the Invisible Listener,” by composer Jacob Beranek. She is the recipient of the 16th Annual Mudfish Magazine Poetry Prize, judged by Marie Howe. For more, visit her website at www.alyssastadtlander.com.

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