Two Poems
Future Pie
I never play “zipper”
when I get a “Z” tilealthough I’m hopeful
some day I mightI am saddened
that something so slight
is all my hope
is willing to attach to.Drifting. Dreaming. In the azure blue –
the ‘Z’ tile conjures Ella
the ‘Z’ alone conjures zebra& by proxy
a herd of zonkey in Crow Canyon
Elliot has been privy to.The zonkey is a mythical creature
brought to life by cross-breedinguntil I can’t see the forest through the trees’ reality
filtered through angles
that have the distorted thickness
of aquarium glassso there is little to gauge
what appears to be surfacerelapsing my way
until there is no distinctionuntil the century happens concurrently
between what is & was & wasn’t said& we are left in the damp warmth
to find we have legs
flabby & weak
but legs
that connect to a joint
in our chest
also flabby & weak
but a joint in our chestwe press against & find it breathes.
I scour to get nearer
but end up washing clear
through the internal particulars
of an unstructured dovetilting the retelling
until all its horses
slosh over the sidein as many colors as the news
where I get high on the fumes
of unregulated fuck-upsstand up quick to head rush
followed by the neat-o making of dinner &
my hands bound by the suds.Equating our future pie
with the first bee sightingin the waning pre-full moon
we gawk back
at the squawk boxpinning the blame on the texting conductor
not the text,
or the subtext,
or the context,
or the texture.I told the woman at Lenscrafters
I wanted my sunglasses tinted as dark as Stevie Wonder’s.She paused as if about to break dishes
Socket Rot
& said, “Stevie Wonder is blind”.
Death wanted this mat. This nerve. This ritual.
The red herring drove.
The season was part of the underbrush –
the part where everyone goes on vacation.
He who registered his symbol among the executive gaggle
was iller than ill. He who invented vitamin supplements
was also part of the trilogy.
And he who gets got
by the illnessmakes it a tragedy where he is the illest. Until we all got ill.
Before, grass had discussed
how place should go & what to
do with the wander fluff.
But these arrangements went degenerate
and made vacant of them. So the place was run over by spores.
While we were helping to invent stairs
the concussives remained locked in a chamber.
How can so empirical an inspection suffer
from what even the random know?
Until you are vitriol, a long slug of it.
When the bitter weakensjust shy of sweet
you celebrate the gears in your thumbs.
Until the high-hat needs assertiveness training
& the citizen exercisehas landed winged –
a brain. No. An amateur has landed
between the world & where the gentlemen vibrate.
Why else would so enormous a wish volunteer?