This Is Not A Stickup By Paul Valéry
broken
handlebars and a rust-riddled cross, a few less plucks at chartreuse petals as
you count footsteps by fives between sidewalk cracks,
nobody
knows the twinge of a bell anymore, no more rings, no more rustling wind
through the pines,
ophelia’s
in the kiddie pool again, her nickel-plated skip-link chain necklace on,
for
the left of over, for the brittle scratch of one less of two, for the baize’s
whistle of pool, hair shadows in the whale-oil lamplight, the take’s gone from
sleep, halt-and-hark traffic’s bent for just us in the eiffel-tower-sparkled
glow of it all, in the electric sizzle of the power lines, in tandem pedaling
towards the moon,
cracked
as rain-worn shingles, even bubblegum stretched would do, in a motor’s clutch,
safely round corners and daffodil stems, loomed lighter, awash comes in handy
with stinging apiary whiffs, winded blind,
hand-cranked
cares, the breaks shot, woe gone downhill with a lunatic’s tears, sweetly
menacing with back-of-the-head eyes, from moaning violas to lapis lazuli
harmoniums tilted gingerly towards the colors of sunrise,
a
velocipede for your thoughts, a penny-farthing for your dreams, another
“indeed” grown to only be groaned as the sewer grates smoke,
coast
through unpaved troubles if you can, a truncheon in the spokes of it all, a
gutsy rasp tying your shoes together, an overcoat praying for winter, socks
with a proclivity for argyle thoughts, a distressed undershirt that blabs
sincerity to junipers and fire hydrants from a man typed to death with ink in
his veins and newspaper skin who eats boilerplate and skimmed mercy for
breakfast while the sky sinks low enough for him to sleep through the day on,
and
the war is far enough away, it always is far enough away,
and the music’s ammunition has yet to run out, in the
shelter of war’s shadow, here, stuck almost close and almost together, riding
alone on this bicycle made for two…
At It Again by Shel Silverstein
my thumbnail’s smashed so it’ll match my heart
in the underhanded sort of way I know so well
it’s a lost tie
a lone glove
a millionaire’s toupee blown down Easy Lane
tiny pink ribbons wave in the whisper trees
every time somebody’s buried
any gravedigger in town will tell you as much
any lopsided clothes-matcher will know
in the wept sundries of a never-taken stance stem inconstant
wisteria’s patchy growth
riptide for you
a dowser’s curse for some
listing comes to all etceteras in the end
or count past the brushed palms into breakneck slowness
if pull comes to push
in the revolving door of your moments
order rarer things from the ordinary menus of others
keep a tab on plagues of locusts
for all of your mind’s islands are being swarmed
again
and the time of pummeling is near
my pushpin heart is swelled with a Diet-Rite ache
a ballooning empty mush
that dampens and hampers my mossy livelihood
until 7 days of rest a week is all that’s left
please
if war be without you
please
copy over-and-out copy
stop
please
do not ladle out my snail-shell soup
just yet
stop
there were nocent breath mints in your pocket
nightly
where armless men threaded needles with their toes
in the boiling rattlesnake water
in the have-it-all silence
in the oranges gone to Julius
somehow
this faded sapphire mood of mine
gone flat with exposure
has drooped its mildewed fronds
over the soppy
copy-edited
lint-sprinkled pavement
of all my first times
once again
all penchant for heliotrope has gone Sour-Skittles south for
the duration of the season
my reek is chemicals in a vapid waft of hope
my name’s just a stenciled breath
my hours dip and bend
my toes creak and groan
do not heed my high-dive stalling
do not toss sunflower seeds to mice
we are humans
here
vulnerable and frail creatures filled with arrogance
lost stagnant in our cotton-candy muck
do not pay us much mind
game over
Umbrellas For The Soaking Wet by James Thurber
If there were a wig to wear for a wish’s hair
you most certainly, my dear--
dazzled by blonde’s dare
(dye, it would appear)
in the mind’s cleanest hemisphere--
have mended heaven’s bough
to only ask, “Why…How?”
or sidle earring-near.
Telling the present by past palm’s scars
what the future mars;
hell,
it’s not in the movies’ stars.
But myopic
and quick
go the hungry and slick,
while the patient are plied
with witty cocktails lied
(the current motto: charm and abide)
to no good other side
of which one is (remember)
only slightly a member;
and the past
more or less
loses all consequence
until the rain--
slaying every last bow-tied Cain--
washes away (for all’s vain)
another mediocre November.
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