The Poetry Of..
Steve De France..........................................
HER GARDEN
Sitting in HER garden
I resolve to reflect a positive life outlook.
I begin a spiritually affirming list poem.
I like fish swimming in a pond.
Birds are good---they sing a bit.
Ducks are decorative but dumb.
Snails pillage in the sunlight
trying to destroy all green life.
Flora thoughtlessly absorbs the sun's
life force seeking to open buds & pods,
dripping with nectar into
the waiting nothingness--- of it all.
Clearly---negativity is creeping
into my narrative---but so many freeways
so circumscribe my life---so surround me.
That I am forced to breathe processed fumes
from ancient Arabian dinosaurs.
Steady on---I tell myself
up with the affirmative!
I dream of the sea---mother of humanity.
Yes, life affirming--- primordial ooze to amoeba
to Nazi Superman---to Los Angeles metro- sexual.
Hope for the evolution of humanity is a state of mind,
despair the opposite paradigm turned right side up.
I am waiting for this disease called humanity
to be discarded---left desolate
in the outhouses of human history
The sky grows dark over The Garden.
Wind rushes trees & slanted rain
cuts into the outstretched palms of plants.
I gather my life affirming poem,
while over the fence-- cars splash
through acid filled rain.
Inside my diggs, I ponder the metaphysics
of being a positive green party advocate.
Petty rodents try to undermine every garden,
as petty bureaucrats use weasel language
attempting to undermine every free country.
So---I changed the title to: POLITICAL RODENTS
SUCKING THE CHLOROPHYLL OUT OF THE PROLETARIAT.
EXILE IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD
The dead hide in suburban vehicles
with electrified hair, or ponytails' flair,
behind darkened windows - dead children scream
Suburban dead patrol local strip malls,
bump over curbs, run old folks from crosswalks,
nick fenders, as their minds reflexively gag
from work & their death part in this day.
Shopping center searchlights reach toward,
cosmic darkness as smells of searing cow flesh,
from fast food pit stops, hang suspended
in the grease smeared canopy of sky.
Old & young alike waddle wide
into Big Buns Food Barn
& like killer whales in bloodied water
these ponderous leviathans hunt & gather
27 kinds of sugar, 11 kinds of lard
51 varieties of cheese from France
& a hundred and one pounds of prime pork..
The dead deny all renewal from the sea,
reject the icy breath in the stream,
dismiss the blaze of the desert sun,
the dead reject the shade of oak trees,
never follow twisting rivers,
never chance life in a single desperate gamble,
never make a lonely midnight call from Yuma,
never hear good byes from ghostly lovers,
never shake in their own puke on the bathroom floor,
never love because the dead fear all pain.
The dead only know what the dead know,
they meet at desolate corners & reiterate things,
things about things they have been taught to say.
valentine cards, easter eggs, green peace, democrats,
republicans, oil too high, plastic christmas & presents,
politicians too low & all politically correct things are saluted.
Offspring of the dead wallow in the potato salad
as their dead progenitors sit on the front porch with a martini
to admire their families' inherited resemblances,
pig eyes, receding chin, simian forehead,
pink soft skin, and spongy hanging flesh.
They share brochures from Forest Lawn,
where their Crosses are already laid out
and their Graves already dug.
Husbands of the dead---men in greasy jeans---oil rags hanging
smile foolishly---throw tools at one another---swear
and drain oil from their trucks.
I AM A SEAGULL
The man turned his collar up against the Moscow cold.
It was 18 November 1898.
The wind fresh from the Steppes was strong & snow fell steady
swirling in the wind---the man shivered--- chilled to the bone.
He curbed his open carriage at the Hotel Borodin--a groom
wearing a soup stained muffler grappled with the horses' reigns.
"Throw a blanket over her," shouted the well dressed man.
Doctor Anton Pavlovich Chekov walked along the miasmic corridor.
Smells of cabbage, vodka & potatoes competed for his attention.
A corpulent figure moved out of shadow.
"I didn't think you would come at all," her voice guttural & accusatory.
"I am here---as you can plainly see," he coughed harshly into a folded napkin.
"I thought you would stay at your theatre tonight."
"I can't stand yapping here all night." A small spray of blood had stained his napkin.
Yes ...yes Doctor---" the bear of a woman pushed at the door
ushering him into a dark and squalid room, lit by a single oil lantern.
"She hasn't paid rent in a week," lamented the old woman, perhaps you. . .
The doctor threw his bag and great coat on the bed.
"Now Nina, let's have a look at you . . . ."
Her hair was golden---face terribly pale---almost marble.
"I'll tell you her trouble is with men---men who won't pay."
"Madam, I must ask you to leave me with my patient."
"I'm not paying for this whore," grumbled the landlady.
"Yes, I understand. He threw a few rubles on the table. Leave us."
He listened to the young woman's lungs slowly filling with fluids.
He changed her dressing & administered an elixir
to thicken the blood & stop her abdominal bleeding.
"I am so ashamed, she blurted out, I want to be dead."
Chekov adjusted his nose spectacles.
"Death will come for both of us---let's have no more of this. So what shall we talk about
tonight? The Theatre? Dance? The Musicals?"
Her body trembled with emotion, "My baby cold as the grave," cried the young woman.
The doctor pressed his index finger to her lips & she tried to smile away her memories.
Chekov consulted his chained vest watch---the curtain was going up at the Moscow Arts Theatre.
He thought of leaving--- but remembered the last time THE SEA GULL was produced
it ran for only 3 days.
Strangely at home, he pulled up a wooden chair & lit his pipe.
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