Come-On And Sting Me

I've been anticipating starting-up this new blog for weeks now. Besides tutoring pampered brats (they most likely won't read this anyway) who could just as easily learn on their own if they had an ounce of initiative, I listen to music of all kinds and read myself to sleep at night for lack of a warm body in bed to fool around with. The reading works just fine and I can even kiss the book when I'm done and not have to worry about popping in a breath mint. At the moment, I'm reading one called "Broken Music" by one of my favorite recording artist, Sting. The book is sort of a memoir but not really. It is more an account of his life in a non-traditional autobiography covering the period of his childhood through adolescence, up to the time he joins the band Police. It explores specific moments of his life including certain people and relationships in an effort to try to understand the child he was and the man he has become. The book is utterly stimulating and intriguing at the same time. It is also surprisingly well-written for someone who is first and foremost a song writer. I just started it over the weekend after finishing David Ritz's book on Jimmy Scott. Both books make swell bed partners. Take them to bed with you if you need something to fondle. Now, here's three more poems:

More Plain Heathen Mischief

How it works is like this:

A fossilized thumb sprouts two sleepy hollows or the prized

clay vase is really an ayatollah disguised as an excavation

site. Rocks grow-up to be just another fairly common rash.

tissue is inadvertently exposed around the umbilical cord

of polluted metaphysics causing the whole world to end up

listening to Motown Music. Or in the alternative scenario,

the color white learns how to bugaloo down Broadway

wearing only a bunch of bananas for a skirt. A crowd gathers

at the intersection. No one is arrested. A misdemeanor is

something you wash using rubber gloves. Or every branch

in the family tree turns out to be kindling wood with the

code-name "genealogy". No one even considers blackbirds

baked in a pie. Cherry is the flavor most soda-drinkers prefer

and even you can develop spine enough to march into the boss'

office without knocking and demand a raise. In most cases,

Seattle re-surfaces a few months later as a hundred vacation-

bound Germans destined for Havana. There's wood piled

along the stream but no ribs served in the cafeteria. Or the luft

balloons are multi-colored and always willing to fly. So baby

what are you waiting for? Let your fingers do the walking

through the yellow pages. And don't forget to bring along

enough chump change to tip the executioner.

"The Messiah Code" List

If I remember correctly, here is a list of those things missing:

-Rainwater pooled in the awning of a french bistro.

-Trees growing on only one side of the seven hills.

-A photograph of the Nile that's aged to sepia over the years.

-One intricately tended bonsais in a koi-patterned planter.

-Charts & graphs illustrating the fault line under Jakarta.

-The massive overgrowth of a Brazilian rain forest.

-Every bat that lays claim to Transylvania's caves.

-Nymphal snake skin of an Indian cobra after several molts.

-And that single lungful of breath that began this world.

Lip-Syncing A Vague Terrain

By the time she returns from the restroom I've been ayatollah-ed

twice. Or any gravedigger for that matter, entwined with sawdust

on the floor and the faint smell of turpentine around the magician's

wand or best drank at room temperature. The stowaway hides

between the turkey stuffing or low-life a voice-over using french

sub-titles. The bar seats are all occupied by ghosts. An ocean parks

in the driveway of Italy at a beach that was once merely stunted

pebbles or could successfully manage to evade capture. Either way,

all the money that was originally ear-marked for more exhaust fumes

now resolves to live in a play or becomes a scene already revised

in the script. Or just to curse the sea she captained, I later admit,

once I'm safe on dry land...

deliberately allowing my speech to accept the award.

These poems are currently online at: www.laikapoetryreview.blogspot.com/2006/11/laika-issue-three-contents.html

Copyright 2007 by Maurice Oliver. All Rights Reserved.