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Zoo Poem
I. Introduction
Whoops is the mother of invention.
Necessity is a bad mommy. The illegible shopping
list is alphabetical rain. I have flagrant cholesterol
because I would like to live in cheese. Somewhere
on this list is the death threat I sent myself: camembert.
I'm not scared. Don't make me flex my vegetarian
muscles. Don't say I bake the saddest croutons
of childhood, don't say I serve indigestible roughage.
II. Theme
Not so secretly, this is a poem about mortality.
III. Exploration of Theme Terminology
Let's say "fear of death" is the largest stuffed animal in FAO Schwarz.
Naturally it's a panda ("exotic," mythically friendly, but really vicious).
As you know, the panda (real, not stuffed) is virtually extinct, except
in zoos.
Let's call these zoos "poems." Let's say anything can be a poem.
(Notice that I didn't say "anything is a poem.") This is a "for
instance."
IV. Recapitulation
I'm thinking of a word beginning with x.
Is it: a) excrement b) xylophone c) exhume
d) exercise e) all four
V. Coda
Post-shopping and I've forgotten several things.
Things on the list, things not on list, things not in the grocery store.
These things reveal or don't reveal themselves gradually, like artichokes.
Neruda has a poem about an artichoke getting dressed up as a warrior.
Its armored skirts, its going to market, its getting in adventures.
It's not his best poem. I'm more into his political stuff.
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Looking Forward to Leaving
The morning is trapped in a mason jar and nothing can save
it.
Not blatant, nostalgic winking, not olive cream cheese
and a perfect heirloom tomato. Here a mild earthquake,
there a mild earthquake, everywhere a mild earthquake.
From procrastination's onomatopoeia inbox of sexual cliché:
Baby you're oh so attachment.
Baby you're oh so contains non-secure items.
Who's been a bad virus?
The afternoon goes straight to slow hell's pastel Easter egg basket.
Later, the downtown is armed with hackneyed neon.
It is surrounded by a forest of witty coasters
and decadent lagers that grab your tongue like a doctor.
But I don't care. I'm going to buy the biggest diet coke
I can drink and drive with. I'm going to put The Pixies in
the tape deck. I'm going to wind around
morning's forehead
like a Möbius
Strip.
It's going to kick ass and be the opposite of Jack Kerouac.
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