& grow potato eyes
Hang out your shingle & huddle
The stuff being said out there
would make a carnival barker blush
My poodle's going to grow a pair
& take out some trash
as fast as you can mutate
the world contorts in
painful spasm
& you're BETA
debased
not even groovy old
VHS tape
In thrift store
do you find yourself making
motor boat noises with your lips
do you find your lips
among the weeping
diapers loaded Vegas dice
are your lips tax compliant
can your lips do the dog
These lips have sung songs
Of hope in pee smelling
Catholic schoolrooms
Have only received a few fist impacts
In 55 years
Our table on the 18th green
has schrapnel popping in the gin
The one gunman stopped long enough
To grill & eat meat
I'm making a car wreck face
Mirror you know nothing
I was a little girl bike
A knotted old man
Seeking upright
If the spine of the exploded terrorist
plopping onto the cop car
windshield does not
signal the end of civilization
what mythology can
we now grow
to make room
for all our breath?
As my Amish friend says
"It wonders me."
* * *
A Shoebox Versus a Church Versus a Swimming Pool
Shadows dump the
Shadows dump the
voices of frustrated
pay phone calls into
the shoebox, with
an unimpeded boxcar
mustache that once
rode above lips tossed
with indigestion.
The church is filled
with hushed marching
and a brocaded cushion
feels boundless yearning
for the swinging
incense canister.
A swimming pool
can be baptismal,
so blue and rippling,
topped with shifting light
triangles, but it can
also be a fondue
bowl of greasy bodies
doing things that
humans do in what
some may call their
mortal weakness.
For the disgruntled
onlookers things are
at a maddening crawl
as they yell
for blue suede shoes
reflected in Cadillac
chrome, Germanic angels
lifted from Deutsche
Grammophon covers
aloft in trees,
roaring stadiums or
at least wrinkle free collars.
There is a slow
closeup on
a heavily veined hand
lifting a photo of
Uncle Divscek from
the still crisp shoebox,
its corners not yet
blunted or kicked around,
indicating there might
still be hope, that someone
has bought new sneakers
or wingtips for
a fresh school year
or job interview.
After surviving the
Battle of Bastogne
Uncle Divscek refused
to fly unless the
pop band The Beatles
were also on
the plane, reasoning
no God would take
them down while they
were so beloved.
Which is not saying much
for Buddy Holly or Patsy Cline.
In this photo
Uncle Divscek has his
parish priest by
the side of the
neighborhood pool.
A few days after
this photo was taken
two altar boys were
found floating dead
on the pool's surface
and Ringo Starr
was killed in a hunting
accident by the
Vice President of
The United States.
* * *
pay phone calls into
the shoebox, with
an unimpeded boxcar
mustache that once
rode above lips tossed
with indigestion.
The church is filled
with hushed marching
and a brocaded cushion
feels boundless yearning
for the swinging
incense canister.
A swimming pool
can be baptismal,
so blue and rippling,
topped with shifting light
triangles, but it can
also be a fondue
bowl of greasy bodies
doing things that
humans do in what
some may call their
mortal weakness.
For the disgruntled
onlookers things are
at a maddening crawl
as they yell
for blue suede shoes
reflected in Cadillac
chrome, Germanic angels
lifted from Deutsche
Grammophon covers
aloft in trees,
roaring stadiums or
at least wrinkle free collars.
There is a slow
closeup on
a heavily veined hand
lifting a photo of
Uncle Divscek from
the still crisp shoebox,
its corners not yet
blunted or kicked around,
indicating there might
still be hope, that someone
has bought new sneakers
or wingtips for
a fresh school year
or job interview.
After surviving the
Battle of Bastogne
Uncle Divscek refused
to fly unless the
pop band The Beatles
were also on
the plane, reasoning
no God would take
them down while they
were so beloved.
Which is not saying much
for Buddy Holly or Patsy Cline.
In this photo
Uncle Divscek has his
parish priest by
the side of the
neighborhood pool.
A few days after
this photo was taken
two altar boys were
found floating dead
on the pool's surface
and Ringo Starr
was killed in a hunting
accident by the
Vice President of
The United States.
* * *
All Of The Swollen, None Of The Greatness
Underwear pressed between mattresses
Underwear pressed between mattresses
has something to say about Fiesta Goulet
seated in a shaded lawyer corner
Beaming with milk life
experiencing buttering outbursts
beneath an umbrella.
"Everything tastes like pressed hotdogs" he yells.
I think he's presidential.
Smell his hint of animal strength,
take a sip of noble rot.
Everything is happening
filtered through concussion
codified in palaces of deniable operations.
These are the last days.
These are the first days.
These are the days for cutting up paper dolls
canned corn of Bachelor Years Redux.
seated in a shaded lawyer corner
Beaming with milk life
experiencing buttering outbursts
beneath an umbrella.
"Everything tastes like pressed hotdogs" he yells.
I think he's presidential.
Smell his hint of animal strength,
take a sip of noble rot.
Everything is happening
filtered through concussion
codified in palaces of deniable operations.
These are the last days.
These are the first days.
These are the days for cutting up paper dolls
canned corn of Bachelor Years Redux.
* * *
Rupert Wondolowski is the author of Mattress In An Alley, Raft Upon The Sea, The Origin of Paranoia As a Heated Molesuit, & The Whispering of Ice Cubes. His work has appeared in Everyday Genius, Fell Swoop, Mud Luscious Stamp Stories, Murdaland, The ie Reader, City Sages & many other citadels of word gathering. He sings & plays guitar in The Mole Suit Choir, who are almost finished with their second album (their first, "Campfire Spacesuit," is on Ehse Records). He has lived so long in Baltimore, where he co-owns Normal's Books & Records, that he now contemplates living in Baltimore.
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