Sunday, August 23, 2009

2 Poems



Here are two poems. The second one is in Calliope Nerve.



*****

1.)


Antique

Through the red window, smokestacks
gurgle in the rain. Trees lay their sobbing

shadows all around. "No vacancy in the world," says the sign.

I sit up in bed, a homemade knife
taped to the bottom

of my shoe. Across the room, the hood
of the executioner

falls off, reveals the face of a beautiful woman,

or is that a clock?

Is that a hearse
driving the wet streets backwards?

I rub my eyes.

My mind feels itself up
for thoughts.

Poetry is a wonderful old keepsake left on the side of the road
that no on else
wants.



2.)

the neighborhood watch

there he goes again, backing the ass
of his big diesel pickup truck
into his driveway
parking so the nose juts out just a little
past the holly bushes,
so its headlights peer out like eyes
of a rat that's just crawled back
in its hole...
i bet it makes him feel safe
i bet he thinks he's in complete command
of the game
letting us all know his jumbo-sized tonka
truck is out there
eyeing us, gazing into the very depths
of our souls, passing moral and definitive
judgments on us...
i bet it makes him feel superior
and a tad macho
climbing down out of his eddie bauer cab
striding up through his lawn
in his ill-fitting boilersuit
and all his
small-minded pride
he stomps his boots on the stoop, opens the screen
door and
scoots inside
leaving his truck in the driveway
to off-gas the egotistical facets of his personality
the world must learn to adapt
itself to. in a word,
i'm thinking about slashing
all his tires