Knight of the China Buffet
Paused to let a wave of regret pass
I stared at the goldfish in the pond
each one a little gangster of oblivion.
When I looked up the palace was gone
and the pale, melancholic princess
with it. I sat a while peeling an orange.
It was a perfect day, a day
that labors its perfection
reminding you in soft-cloud mouth,
eventually, you’re going to gag
on your own breath
and fall naked in the shower.
Having been her catastrophic
husband: her skin, small ears,
heart ass. Having seen
the crystalline parfaits
she ate in silence…
I try to say my own name
in all the different accents
I know.
A Socialist Play of the Thirties
Ferment was due
the sissy
in the form
of a stranger.
He stood under
the green apple
sky
waiting
with a vial
of
tree-sap
and some
old batteries.
Android in the Garden
You’ve spent your deviant years with us
pruning flowers, exploring chemicals,
trying to understand the horizon,
borrowing our Chevy Cavalier and driving
and driving and driving because you liked to watch the gauges.
And we’ve liked to watch you watch the gauges on those occasions
when we’ve gone with you on your drives.
Its time we asked you to get out there in the world,
do your own thing for your own good.
You can even work in a nursery. You can work in a nursery
and then you can one day, after you put in the hard work, own a nursery
and you can grow whatever the hell flowers you want.
To Live with God in Prayer for the Inexhaustible Garden
If it shines it robs me of the trick of regretting,
the window that looks out on the garden that I don’t
ever want to steam over with nostril breath. I have to just
not look out too much on my cabbage
waiting for the dark descent of the rabbit from his hilltop villa,
Thermal Carbonia, with a copy of The Magic Mountain
and a lust for Vitamin A.
Vague intimation
his only weapon.