Verse comes to worse at Mile Haiku

Spooky blue flame steed

Greets us with heinous anus

This is art? Horseshit!

Nearly a hundred people gathered in the basement of the Denver Public Library’s central branch Monday night to sound off on Denver International Airport’s giant blue “Mustang” — the horse we love to hate. The poetry reading was inspired by Rachel Hultin, the Denver native who created the Facebook page “DIA’s Heinous Blue Mustang Has Got to Go” (11,000 members strong), emceed by Cafe Nuba’s engaging Ashara Ekundayo, who knows a thing or two about poetry, and hosted by Fresh City Life and, yes, Westword.

Over the course of the evening, 25 poets rocked the mike. Favorite subjects included the horse’s veiny ass, his testicles and, of course, those gleaming, devilish eyes.

But the biggest revelation of the night may have been that Luis Jiménez‘s sculpture is the least of our worries. As Jared Jacang Maher pointed out in his, um, poem, “DIA…,” the airport is the center of the universe when it comes to conspiracy theories (“DIA Conspiracy Theories Take Off,” August 28, 2007), and this sculpture has just made the airport even more legendary.

DIA…

—is a temple built by the Masons for the New World Order

—is a secret habitat for reptilian aliens who feast on lost children

—is a monument to the Third Reich — the runways are shaped like a huge swastika!

—contains an underground military base built four levels deep for the global elite to live during the apocalypse

—contains an underground concentration camp built by the global elite to dispose of the world’s unwanted masses

—has murals that reveal the Illuminati’s plans to steal our guns and enslave us in a military dictatorship

—features a gargoyle created by the Knights Templar to oversee the baggage claim

—emits strange, subsonic vibrations that crack airplane windshields and knock down Continental flights

—is built on an Indian burial ground and plays Navajo chants to subdue the angry spirits

—has an intergalaxy beacon in the main terminal to summon the mothership

THEREFORE:

—”Mustang” didn’t kill Luis Jiménez

—he was killed by the CIA because he knew the truth and was trying to warn the public

—the huge, blue mustang is a warning to stay away from the hideous, frightening DIA.

When pigs flu: Apocalyptic news is on everyone’s mind these days, as the swine flu spreads from Mexico to the United States. The respiratory ailment, which at last count had killed 200 people in Mexico and sickened fifty in the United States, is dangerous, but not always fatal. And, unless it mutates, it’s certainly not as deadly as Captain Trips, the fictional, man-made virus that killed 99.4 percent of the population in The Stand, Stephen King‘s seminal 1990 novel. In that scenario, the good people who survive make their way to Boulder and try to re-form civilization, while the bad people go to…where else? Vegas.

Got scoop? Contact editorial@westword.com.