The Poetry Of..
Steve De France................................................
RENDEZVOUS WITH A PART TIME GOD
Who is the gaunt stranger in the train station?
There---where he slides into the crowd.
See how he stands perfectly still in the dark.
Why is it only you & I see him?
Only you and I hear his ragged breathing,
see his puss & pock marked face,
smell his breath of fetid hemlock wine.
See where his burning gaze settles
and seethes on that smiling salesman.
Where are the holy Gods to shield
all these less significant people?
Which one is the God for brothels,
gutters & darkest corners of the city?
Don't the weakest sinners need God most?
Will these less significant beings only be
assigned a non-union God? A second stringer.
An hourly part-time God? A daily substitute.
A God without a corner extraterrestrial office.
A second banana God without
a gold key to the celestial toilets
A shabby ruffian kind of God ---
one who hangs out on park benches,
or in public urinals,
& sleeps in his clothes at bus stations?
Will this non-union scab of a God
foul up the sanctity of the last prayers of the dying,
or mar the last rites of this dying salesman so badly
that the bureaucrat Gods malingering in heaven
will simply mark an "X" in the space
left open for "lost" & then chuck his soul
in the dead letter box?
ABSENCE OF MERMAIDS
As a younger man
I dreamed of living in exotic far-off lands
Zanzibar . . . Madagascar,
or wandering in a reverie
at the paws of the Egyptian Sphinx.
And there beneath a fresh-made hornéd moon
specters of Coleridge and Keats were at my side,
Eliot is there, too. Wearing only a tie-pin.
I tear off my pants, and dive into forgetful crystal waters,
there in swirling foam, mermaids sing to me,
their kisses sweet with amnesia and the salt of sea.
We love like sea horses on the back of dolphins,
and then my voice rings out my poem:
volcanoes explode answering my startled cry for man,
even the dead of Dylan's Sea sing in their chains
like the sounds of shrieking stones in the rolling surf,
and my young spirit is large upon the land.
I was a conjurer full of the touch of the poet.
As an older, but no smarter man
I live in Los Angeles.
Parts of my dreams have come true.
Many people from far-off lands live all around me.
Many of them pee on my lawn,
especially when they celebrate Cinco d' Mayo.
Most of my neighbors don't talk to me.
It's not entirely their fault.
I don't like them much either.
Button-down assholes all.
Accountants, lawyers, head doctors,
and an occasional proctologist,
and up to now no mermaids at all.
But when the spirits and specters of poetry
are hard upon me, even fornicating in my dreams
I rend all clothes from my body
and stand naked and sagging between
alien houses in this enveloping suburban tract.
And then quite deliberately,
I smile in a Bay window darkly.
And through the pores of the houses,
I clearly hear my neighbors
dying for a dream or two
in their life fermenting modular dark
GREGOR'S WINGS
The village clock strikes eight chimes.
Moisture forms on my upper lip,
precisely the minute hand shutters
& clicks over locking in on 8:00 A.M.
Somewhere I hear distant thunder.
The imperial bank doors swing open.
Polished marble glistens in morning light.
Strangely serene, I carefully consider the endless
accounting-journals waiting inside for me.
I check my brass pocket watch.
Its linked chain loops across my tattered vest.
in the shape of a beetle's back.
I walk briskly to my work chamber
as my wings rustle under my suit.
A gypsy on the street begins playing the violin.
I consider the bank's ornate gilded-clock.
7 minutes past eight.
Closing time seems an eternity from where
I take my post in the metal counting cage.
I sharpen my No# 4 pencil.
My green visor covers my eyes
which have grown so sensitive to the light.
I begin the column of figures.
Main Page
This site sponsored by
|
| |