Paul Siegell (Philly, Pa): Six Poems

*ANSWER: A NEW ERA*

the road otherworldly, “anyone else wanna see themselves
******on tv?”
the road otherworldly, crisis leadership and a discount on
******decisions when we’d really rather pay full price
the road otherworldly, sometimes everything in the salad
******tastes like produce grown on another planet

pick up a couple even tho they might be slightly troublesome

the road otherworldly, truckers who haul hazardous cargo
the road otherworldly, hurried the urine shot through urethra
the road otherworldly, to be gradually gravitating toward
******“Nothing. What’s new with you?”

from the rooftops we watch for the meteors of metaphor

the road otherworldly, Abraham, Alabama, iIn my tears for
*****America: today just needs to get on with it and let us
*********go already
the road otherworldly, poem Obama, Optimus Prime, Obama
******on Mount Olympus: (shepherd a breathtaking backfire?)
*all the hopes for Obama bohemia—
the road otherworldly, my coworker just sneezed


*SCENE AT DUNG GATE*

With prayers left in the crevices, tour-guided Americans lean against
stone, lick vanilla, speak of Wailing Wall and how incredible.

Bareback on a beast, a Palestinian boy plods up, shows off for the brand named,
whacks his donkey’s neck with a stick, quick, made from black irrigation tubing.

“—Whoa!” go the Americans.

Smirks. Goes around the corner.

Tzit tzit dangling, yarmulke’d yeshiva boys carry planks of wood
into the Old City for Lag B’Omer bonfires. Picnic festive and family full.

Little, they use the wall, masonry a few feet high, to slide the planks and rest.
Ice cream Americans smile, say Shalom, giggle with and get outta their way.

Returned, boy-with-burden meets boys-with-firewood and the Holy Land
comes out of camouflage.

Each in each other’s way. Language is used. Grips on the planks of wood
change, tighten, raise, as does the irrigation tube—

“—Yeladim!” detonates down from an apartment window above.
“—Yeladim! Yeladim!” a barrel chest yells. Yeladim means children.


*it is its self to be*

out of an avid gale, a hurricane of shape-shifting persuasion, the line

“of being born a trumpet” steers its sharps into the audience of dance


moves & their domain names: am I not the notes being played as well?


no ordinary hit a-the old http://, such weight of wakeful conversation:

out of the clarion lift, in the calisthenics of the scenery, wide breaths

[esc] toward something



*weird about the way*

the greatest quiet
exists

betwixt the visual elixir
of emeralds

in Esmeralda’s ears.

related searches
in the avocado daylight

find the too

amongst the vacancies
of design

in a sold-out crowd
of cats wearing wheels.

but even then,

walking into the cough
of a Bono wannabe

’s got nothing
on the emptiest of inboxes.



*05.24.08 – JamontheRiver – Festival Pier, PA*
(—Thank You, Drew G!)

we pull up like a rickshaw
of firecrackers

he slips off his sunglasses, squeezes
drops in his eyes

fuses taunt the ticket-takers

ripped for Grimace, the Biscuits, the Flaming Lips

another
head
happening

dyslexics, diggers

out for the apple, falafel, seven bucks for a beer

audition obedient, starry-eyed

three girls with eyeliner
smirk, slink into their brainstorm-mindset headlands

tympanic membranes escalated, bug-eyed

a guy with earlobes stretched by eyelets: expanders,
the kind you can see through, pockets his lighter

speaker-pumped chest thumps

a security guard with bright orange plastic plugs
shielding him from the deafening—

we pull up like a rickshaw of firecrackers, eardrums
triumphant, irradiated

and raging


*toast: is this a joke?*
(—for M. Mayers)

in the event
of an attack

against the United States

or

the possibility
of

you-gotta-be-kidding-me

nuclear war,

feel free,
my fellow heads,

and get bombed

[…]

before dead.