Poems written in The Sanctuary/Iowa City/11 PM by Stephen Anderson, R.C. Davis, Russell Jaffe, Justine Retz, and Eric Roalson
The red exit pointed toward
the setting sun in wide-open Texas,
something about cast-iron skillets and rubbery eggs
to stimulate an appetiteless day.
The key is not to eat too much
anxiety or you will somersault your stomach
turned out by a look or sound of
pinwheel dinosaur masks that hide the face of
fear leads to mistakes
but not well done steaks of a
different animal. So choose your zoo wisely
and run softly, little lion, run softly.
Through the tulips and lipstick and red.
I would like to tiptoe through the tulips
with Tiny Tim but he is
himself some kind of unavoidable shape.
The air in Paris is fresh.
Don't wait to eat, you must
eat the plum around the peel.
This is a recording. Eat the remainder
of something that happened when
Sam Spade would find out.
That the fedora was an inflated frisbee.
And the frisbee was made of gold.
So when I caught it it broke my middle
finger and
this is how I was tamed. I became
obtuse while discussing the nature
of polka-dot bikinis and financial liabilities.
The people on Wall Street are living it up at our expense
because they think minimum wage is enough
of a thing. So be this thing:
Walk into the fire with snake boots on.
Today is the day you finally
become the that you
becoming is exquisite.
Being is a yellow light wanting
to be laid by a gigantic red hen.
To be the egg you believe in most.
That one in the middle of the box that
is left more romantic than gym shorts and unpicked
lint from between toes manicured in
full living color and produce placement plethora
on The Price is Right.
Only if you're of the 1%, sot he rest
can drink the blood of whomever needy or poor
while the chosen take champagne showers.
And tell you to eat cake you can't afford.
Elites are telling us to eat cake
like Marie Antionette.
The yellow sun dips into the cheese fondue.
I eat heavily thereafter. Something about containers
that make me hard, succumbing to
life can submerge you
under the branches of a sycamore
tree wrecked by
the disease you call fire. I call it
the echo of the sirens calling
long distance like a javelin in the clouds.
The Greeks are having a hard time
but are used to having hard things
on rustically imposed planets like this one.
The beings with guns and metal own
your sorry ass that cries and whimpers sad.
Don't feel sorry for yourself
because it only serves to annoy us.
Hampered by the blues of my soul
I was welcomed at Uptown Bill's
by a demented hairdresser who
sang Sinatra while cutting hair with eyes closed.
Personally, I cut my own, so let me ask you:
Did you really think that you...
yes, I thought that I.
There is an answer to everything
under the sun that burns my arse and
I say arse because you make me feel so declarative.
I shout it from the rooftops in New York City
and then hear it in the canyons of Utah.
The saints settled in the Utah territory
because they ran out of fuel and
crashed into couches unknown. Teleport
the sparkly sex glands wrapped in gold lamé
and I love to lick the labels of paradise.
Poems written in The Sanctuary/Iowa City/10 PM by R.C. Davis, Russell Jaffe, Justine Retz, Eric Roalson, and Saul Schwartz
It's a smooth, cold stone I'm hearing.
The rain it makes is a cathedral.
The ceiling is open allowing
it inside.
The worm curls into a small ball.
I kick like a frustrated planet into the
cosmos. What constellations do you know?
Orion is the only one speaking
but there is a galaxy on his
belt.
Flash Gordon in spandex,
his obvious package exposed
for what it was not in the New Age
was what it was in antiquity.
Rewind. Pause. Reliable '92. An armchair
made soft with wear.
Wolves are softer
than the litany of short stops
and other seasonal transgressions.
And. Now it's time. For:
No, not Monday Night Football.
I threw the ball into the ether
but it came flying back
a silver, gelatinous
parasite, you'll always be burning and weird so
turn around and go home! You'll find
there are many ways to feed the
habit but only one way not
too Egyptian for the bartender.
To mistake them for thieves
is to carry a mouth of glass daggers--
shattered when the clock
chimed 12:00.
Choirs drinking Guinness, pray
for rain and whatever else
I feel like, amen, always, always.
The cheese had holes in it.
I crawled on factory nights into
machine shop days. Spinning lathes
the hours yarn and yawn
like myself
silver haired fox on the
hood of an abandoned car. XOXO radio,
and there you are, sitting on the trunk
of an elephant or a vegabond or a
hundred other scared giants who know
what I look like in my trembling underwear.
The ones with the holes in it
fit better than
you would ever dance alone
not at some honky tonk bar but
the base of the skull. The soapy blood
spurts, meeting the moon
halfway.
Silver spoon on the tabletop
nestled against the fork
in the lackluster spaces youth spit blood at
their friends and friends' friends alike
concentric circles in the social pond
I backstroke across the sweaty jungle
of teenage undershirts and abandoned
children. Who will take care
of our graveyard fishbowls, our weekend
warriors with feathery fins
fly only halfway before
before gravity teaches you about
what it really means to pickup speed
hits me in the face like a bug and its fluid
yellow mixing with blood
sucking vampires.
The sandman in black robes
flashes the old ladies in the park
feeding windswept pigeons
alka-seltzr--I heard it made them
feel...much...better. What makes you feel
that the rose lady is blooming with
something other than roses.
The stench in my nostrils
was cream sauce. That's how you can tell
it is fresh--vodka.
Or maybe whiskey will
drown the river of insouciance
and see there, what is that floating
in your head of beer? A lone tooth,
scraggly and yellow floats to the top,
pointing erections included
in the deluxe box set.
Monday, December 12, 2011
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