The Last Two Seconds Read Online Free Page A

(Words and original music by Jules Shear.)
    Pussy Riot, a social-activist feminist punk rock group, partly inspired by the 1990’s Riot Grrrl movement in the US, was founded in Moscow in 2011. On February 21, 2012, to protest the re-election of Vladimir Putin, the group entered a near-empty Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow and danced up to the altar while singing a brief expletive-laced song with the refrain “Holy Mother, send Putin packing!” Three of the group’s members, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were later arrested and charged with “premeditated hooliganism.” All three were found guilty and sentenced to two years in a penal colony. In October 2012, Yekaterina Samutsevich was released on appeal; in December, 2014, in advance of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, the remaining two women were released in a general amnesty for non-violent offenders and mothers of young children.
    Reading Conrad’s Heart of Darkness : In spite of a multilateral CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) treaty that went into effect in 1975, continued demand for elephant-ivory products has resulted in a global underground economy that fuels poaching in Africa and Asia and threatens large numbers of elephants.
    As in Corona : The poem takes some of its language from entries in Volume VI: Comines to Deaf-Mute of the Funk & Wagnall’s Universal Standard Encyclopedia (c. 1953–56). It was originally commissioned by Mel Chin and Nick Flynn for Mel Chin’s encyclopedia collage project (published as The Funk & Wag from A to Z , Menil Collection: 2014). Thanks to both of them.
    A Room in Cleopatra’s Palace : Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra begins: “Scene I. Alexandria. A room in Cleopatra’s palace.”
    Scene I: A Hall in the Temple of Justice : Aïda , a four-act opera with music composed by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni (after a scenario by Auguste Mariette), begins: “Scene I: A hall in the Temple of Justice.” The opera was first performed at the Cairo Opera House on December 24, 1871. A 1953 film version of the opera starred Sophia Loren as Aïda, an Ethiopian slave; the music was lip-synched. O patria mia (Oh, my country) is part of an aria that Aïda, who is in love with her Egyptian captor, sings in the third act.
    Close Observation Especially of One under Suspicion : The title is taken from the definition of surveillance—Noun : close observation or supervision maintained over a person, group, etc, esp one in custody or under suspicion—found in Dictionary.com . Collins English Dictionary: Complete & Unabridged , 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/surveillance (accessed: July 10, 2014).
    Sure, it’s a little game. You, me, our minds : The poem was written as the first part of a six-part exquisite corpse published in Tin House for an issue called “Games People Play” (No. 43, 2010). The other participants were Nick Flynn, Matthea Harvey, Alex Lemon, Eileen Myles, and D. A. Powell. Thanks to Poetry Editor Brenda Shaughnessy.
    The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, helps prisoners prove their innocence through DNA testing. The Project has helped to exonerate more than three hundred people in the US, including eighteen who had served time on death row. The average time between imprisonment and exoneration and release has been thirteen years.
    An Individual Equinox Suitable for Framing : The poem is for Kathleen Finneran.
    The Disappearance of Amerika: After Kafka : The quoted material in the subtitles is taken from Mark Harman’s 2008 translation of Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika. Written between 1911 and 1914, Kafka had intended the book to be titled Der Verschollene ( The Missing Person or The Man Who Disappeared ); his literary executor Max Brod changed