Larry Sawyer (Chicago, USA): Four Poems
DANCING OFF THE EDGES OF OUR LIVES
We notice ordinary things like flower pots
filled with sighs and closets dripping
monsters. Is it time yet to depart
from the cloistered probability
that our study of cognac has yielded no
transparencies other than what we
imagined? Here in the future our
wings are mere footnotes
ancanthus medallion, ribbon of sky,
facts smile from posterior gardens.
There is a spy called wonder who watches our
habits. There is a virtue to the geometry of
sleep for a friend is a ruddered thing requiring
citations and phosphorescent rooms.
ANOTHER BALLAD OF MAPS AND GLOBES
Inbetween our faith incontinent
wheezes like a newly invented
instrument upon which we play
the hills from here to there.
Pretty tombstones like teeth
and not like teeth chew the
moon looking down upon this mess,
humans racing to and fro without alibis.
Capsized in the desert they will find us
crouching in the gutters of time
explorers of the inner side of nowhere.
RHINOCEROS CONFETTI
As if there was a man who wore the
mask of a man and that man
noticed behind the mask that there
were shadows covering the earth
like semesters. The man realized he
had a lot to learn. So he studied the
tongues of the shadows as they
spoke a language he'd never heard.
At night they sang the most
intricately embroidered songs.
Perhaps there was a refrigerator in the
sky that he rode to forget himself,
this man who exhaled librarians.
Day and night he read the
silence, cutting his throat with
syllogisms. Butterflies burst forth from his
calamari as he ate it. He noted these
details lazily and continued with his
reverent stroking of the sun.
WAY TO PAMELA ANDERSON
Dare we not say you are gauche
gazing out from between the bars of the television screen
betwixt lip jobs Pamela Anderson pouts
the beach beneath her feet
all the world her magazine, she coos
trying to suddenly remember her line
as the sun licks the horizon a final time and descends
“Way to Pamela, Pamela Anderson!” someone
on the beach shouts. Pamela Anderson cannot
figure out if it’s condescension she’s
hearing or sarcasm. She raises an arm
and waves back yelling jubilantly,
“Thank you, anonymous beach person!”
© Larry Sawyer 2007
We notice ordinary things like flower pots
filled with sighs and closets dripping
monsters. Is it time yet to depart
from the cloistered probability
that our study of cognac has yielded no
transparencies other than what we
imagined? Here in the future our
wings are mere footnotes
ancanthus medallion, ribbon of sky,
facts smile from posterior gardens.
There is a spy called wonder who watches our
habits. There is a virtue to the geometry of
sleep for a friend is a ruddered thing requiring
citations and phosphorescent rooms.
ANOTHER BALLAD OF MAPS AND GLOBES
Inbetween our faith incontinent
wheezes like a newly invented
instrument upon which we play
the hills from here to there.
Pretty tombstones like teeth
and not like teeth chew the
moon looking down upon this mess,
humans racing to and fro without alibis.
Capsized in the desert they will find us
crouching in the gutters of time
explorers of the inner side of nowhere.
RHINOCEROS CONFETTI
As if there was a man who wore the
mask of a man and that man
noticed behind the mask that there
were shadows covering the earth
like semesters. The man realized he
had a lot to learn. So he studied the
tongues of the shadows as they
spoke a language he'd never heard.
At night they sang the most
intricately embroidered songs.
Perhaps there was a refrigerator in the
sky that he rode to forget himself,
this man who exhaled librarians.
Day and night he read the
silence, cutting his throat with
syllogisms. Butterflies burst forth from his
calamari as he ate it. He noted these
details lazily and continued with his
reverent stroking of the sun.
WAY TO PAMELA ANDERSON
Dare we not say you are gauche
gazing out from between the bars of the television screen
betwixt lip jobs Pamela Anderson pouts
the beach beneath her feet
all the world her magazine, she coos
trying to suddenly remember her line
as the sun licks the horizon a final time and descends
“Way to Pamela, Pamela Anderson!” someone
on the beach shouts. Pamela Anderson cannot
figure out if it’s condescension she’s
hearing or sarcasm. She raises an arm
and waves back yelling jubilantly,
“Thank you, anonymous beach person!”
© Larry Sawyer 2007
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