The Park

 

The cement company shows up at the city's largest park and goes to work.

First, a cement river full of cement goldfish and cement turtles;

Some mistake the river for a sidewalk and drown.

Next, cement pigeons and other birds...

Branches fall everywhere--

Lines are down.

Across the city, cement birds fly out of telephones and crash heavily into framed landscapes which fall from the wall.

At the park, work continues.

Cement children appear, presenting cement bouquets.

Cement adults are charmed.

The sun, also cement now, shines down, strangely cheerful.

Look at the city we have made, say the workmen.

Come and live with us

Among the statues.

-----------

For dverse poetics.  A--ahem--"concrete" poem I wrote in 1980. I realize a new poem was expected, but i just couldn't resist. Sorry not sorry. :-P

Note: from what I understand, the difference between cement and concrete is that concrete has stones and stuff in it. You can pave your walk with either, but avoid using abstract. Still not sorry.

The Football Game

The football players are getting like marshmallows.

The blockers squish.

The runners ooze.

The situation worsens steadily until the officials are standing there in the middle of a bunch of goo.

Players and teams are indistinguishable.

The commissioner is like a pudding in his seat and cannot be revived.

Angry fans surround the officials.

They speak of the money spent on tickets.

What are you going to do?

The officials are nervous.

There really is no provision...

_________

And now, please indulge me while I pander to my bestie, Mama Zen....

Happy Saturday. Go, Sooners!

__________

Girl Jox

Like the frequency that only dogs can hear,

Something hums in me, in here,

At the sight of these

Swoon-worthy women,

The girl jox.



So ok, all right, maybe it isn't exactly my heart

That goes a little tilt, a little faint

When I'm around all those ponytails and high fives...



Guy jox are like too-loud music,

But girl jox are like baby bear's frappuccino--

Just right.



Girl jox, where do you go

After the game,

After Pizza Hut,

After torturing ones such as I

With your golden

So kissable

Thighs?



Home with each other, I suppose--

Or to a boyfriend? Say it ain't so!

But never to the starstruck poetess

With the glasses and the library card;

Never to the girl with the black-cat remove,

And the chalk lines drawn around

Her stupid

Hopeless

Endless desire

For you.

____________

(This is a new edit of an old poem of mine)

photo: Jessica Mendoza

____________

Treats

An airplane comes and takes the world away like a tugboat.

In the morning, people wake up and it's gone.

Scientists are baffled.

Meanwhile, an airplane flies through space towing the world like a tourist trailer in Yellowstone Park.

Space-bears beg.

They're so cute, Harry.

Let's give them

Nicaragua.

(1980)

Requiem

I (over)wrote this gloomy little piece when I was 18 years old and just out of high school. It got published in Speakeasy magazine. Most of it makes me cringe now, but I have always really loved the ending. Here it is, and please be merciful.

__________

The empty concert hall--

The podium conducting, the stage performs

A piece of Beethoven's shattered plaster head

In forgotten time.

Ladies and gentlemen--

If it please thee, I sit hangdog on the world's steps.

In the window sobbing three floors above,

Love stands head in hand as

Scores blow crazed past my rubble feet.

And I lay myself open to you, then.

My madness mirror, tender across time and

Believing caressive until it lay sprawled

Hit-and-run

Six o'clock and real, but so am I...

Though I kneel broken,

The bitter victim of iambic pentameter--

My feeling eyes still journey

My seeing heart still voyages

Until, stumbling on a piece of Beethoven's shattered plaster head,

The air hammer song and banking cosmic goes flying

My God, now they'll never know

the moving

measured

female beauty

Of a street sign in the rain.

______________

The Grocery War

Celery have launched a major offensive.

Crackers have dropped leaflets and jammed Radio Free Poultry.

Tomatoes have made a stand in an old department store...they may have enough gelatin prisoners to make some kind of deal.

A dazed mango wanders through the streets as loaves of bread rumble past on their way to the gravy front.

Bags of sugar patrol the skies.

In a house, a mother is making dinner for herself and her daughter.

"We must not do this, it is against the War Act," she says.

On the edge of the city, eggnog has gained a foothold.

Bacon has been subdued.

Some canned goods start up the walk towards a house...

___________

The Park

The cement company shows up at the city's largest park and goes to work.

First, a cement river full of cement goldfish and cement turtles;

Some mistake the river for a sidewalk and drown.

Next, cement pigeons and other birds...

Branches fall everywhere--

Lines are down.

Across the city, cement birds fly out of telephones and crash heavily into framed landscapes which fall from the wall.

At the park, work continues.

Cement children appear, presenting cement bouquets.

Cement adults are charmed.

The sun, also cement now, shines down, strangely cheerful.

Look at the city we have made, say the workmen.

Come and live with us

Among the statues.

______________________

Tell Me, Gray Cat

O gray cat,

Often have I sought your wise counsel;

You stink of fish,

You never blink,

And you are happy as a cloud.

Take your heedless head out of that trash can

And tell me what to do now--

It is Ann,

O Ann...

She will not love me.

Stop batting at yellow butterflies long enough to tell me

Why she must be so cruel

And so carelessly beautiful.

Try to keep your eyes open long enough

As you doze on the porch rail,

To tell me why

O why

My heart must break?

She would love you!

She would clap her hands and follow you like a sweet breeze,

Holding out her heart like tea on a tray!

Shall I

Stick my head in the garbage can?

Shall I

Bat at yellow butterflies and then

Doze off as she pours out her heart

As I am doing with you now?

She might throw an old shoe at both of us, you know--

Still, I will set out sweet cream

In the gray dawn each day;

Set it out with my hopes

Til, gray cat,

You steal them away.

_____________________

Oasis

(I used to live near Brackenridge Park, at the back of which lies the San Antonio Zoo. Sometimes at night, the sound of the big cats roaring their presence to the world would come drifting through my open bedroom window. Hence, this poem.)

Laying on your side,

The elegance of your curves

In the moonlight...

The night purrs

As you chase down the

Gazelles of dreams,

And bring them back to me

Where you're more lovely than

Cool water.

mmm,

My Lioness.

__________________________

(A different version of this poem appears in my short story "Song For Amanda." This is the original.)

After The Kids

After the kids grew up,

Raggedy Ann

married

a Moth

in the attic,

and they had a Child

with her patience and his wings...

so that, one night a man

looked up from his television to find

an Angel

sitting on the stairs.

_______________________

Veronica the Circus Queen

Reach out to me, my sweet

And deliver the blades that describe my silhouette.

Your perfect confidence does not diminish the chill at so many possibly fatal mistakes

The slender arm, the flash of light,

The perfect peace.

The Moon

The moon--

The sky's

Lunatic

Eye;

Lid cocked at a slightly

Different angle

Nightly.