MICHAEL EARL CRAIG

POEM
I WAS THINKING
NOTES TO SELF

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POEM

 

The nitwit danced with the congresswoman
at the spring picnic.

I went down to the river to take a good look at it.
I stood on the bank and said “God, if you do exist—”

A handsome puppet passed, dragging its puppeteer by the hand.

Also a Pekingese wearing a University of Mobile sweatshirt.

To those people who are always talking about “surrealism”
can I suggest opening your fucking eyes?

If you do this, you will see mothballs.  And a green nightgown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I WAS THINKING

 

   1

I thought: It’s Wednesday, I’m
gonna get me a belt buckle with
a bald eagle on it.
The windchimes went batty.

Later the wrestling coach spat
a wet flake of his Swisher Sweet
at the dashboard, which
came off his tongue wrong
and hit me in the cheek.

I thought: Coach’s eyes are like farm animals.
And: all the paths I could take
through the garden if I were a vapor.

Suddenly it was time, as in
all of the sudden the time had come.

A single black llama ran briskly up a hill.
There was pinochle in another town.
The hungry actress ordered sea bass.
And somehow from my poem came your feeling of consent.

 

   2

While slicing olives I remembered Richard Nixon:
“When the President does it,
that means that it is not illegal.”
I thought about this.

And then Ronald Reagan:
“Government is like a big baby—
an alimentary canal with
a big appetite at one end
and no responsibility at the other.”
I could really picture it.

And Albert Einstein:
“Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.”
I sliced another olive.

As this olive rocked open, into halves,
I felt a kind of roadside flare go off in my head:

           
           “It is a human right to be a coward.”  
                                   -Johan Jonson

The flare sputtered.  It was wet:

           “So you, too, like fruitcake?”
                                   -Robert Walser, upon meeting Lenin
                                                 in Zurich, during the war

I sat back.
I had grown tired of slicing olives.

 

   3

When PETA tried to crucify Werner Herzog
for lashing a monkey to a cross
(Even Dwarfs Started Small)
Herzog said: “We only had that monkey
on the cross for sixty seconds.”

Now this was more like it.
Somehow this explained everything.

The actress had gently wolfed her sea bass.
Wednesday was passing quietly like a very loose cannon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTES TO SELF

 

In the red-hot coals of the campfire I see the gently shifting face of a benevolent gorilla.

 

            *

 

When you reach Enlightenment you just laugh.  Right?

 

            *

 

The somber way that motorcyclists wave to one another on the freeway.

 

            *

 

Carol is on the porch.  She lights a small cigar.  It is dead calm out.

 

            *

 

I went to the park at 3 am to look at the tennis courts.  They were wet.

 

            *

 

The old dog softly whines on his cushion.

 

            *

 

The last thing I remember was getting down on my hands and knees to watch the gumball go spiraling around and around
on its way down the machine’s clear plastic column.

 

            *

 

Little puffs of air let loose from a campaign balloon.

 

            *

 

Flyspecks on my eyeglasses keep me constantly paranoid.

 

            *

 

Ataxia amid the daffodils.

 

            *

 

Something mysterious and powerful about a tennis court at night.

 

            *

 

The pen feels like a banana in my hand.

 

            *

 

Eat lunch like you mean it.