Rubber White and Puckered

I dreamt of living in a rubber room
(my head wrapped around a train)
the whistle
it doesn’t sound like a whistle
not like the old western movies

when I say old
(I mean dead, they seem dead)
that black and white trapped in a box
must be bones
it is similar to the pale mornings when I visit the
mausoleum
in the back, where the tiles pull out

no one comes here anymore
not to see the picture behind glass that was Sampson
that was Julia
they don’t notice a dead bird brought in from the rain
No

the tiles are white
all else is ash grey,
black
the train sounds
a horn
a horn that won’t let up
on and on, it goes

as it reaches the end of my mind
the sound fades
end of the track
the last stand of town
the sound of the rails
the rumbling
a vibration
rattling windows

there are no windows here
only rubber
rubber white and puckered
[in the room, we are back in the room]
with buttons
small, round
it looks like a couch
all the way round the room
(you can find death in rooms too)
you can see the door is the outlined shape of a door
sticks out from the rest
it feels like I could run
run into it
and the sound
the sound might go away

Silver Duct Tape

I found a crater in my hand
with your name on it.
I asked where you went,
it said nothing.
There’s a new guy here.
He put a wad of gauze there,
lots of tape.
It was silver duct tape,
the kind I fixed my car with.
I was poorer than I am now,
which is not much.
I used to say it could fix anything.
We would laugh,
just laugh our silly heads off.
ha ha ha
ha ha

The Raw Egg and Grits

the racial profiling in the kitchen is out of control
this man’s voice transposes
the chords of Hunter S. Thompson
It’s the violin’s strings wiggling
slurs
I feel I’ve had too much
sugar
or otherwise
inactive ingredients
he is not wise
I suspect he thinks he is
talking loud enough to take pride
in absurdity
if you listen carefully
in the café
you can hear the
catfish growing
you can hear the
1963 Ford
how it was
a Maroon that resembled
the letting go of a youth
you hear a groomed wisdom
sold over stories
well, some are true
and others are imagined so
something about keeping his coat shiny in Texas
and how he says Aaaa`
knows everything
about something
talks from a napkin
like the blood meeting air comes out blue
the words dribble out the mouth, tastes of poetry
shades that collide and fight for room
he says
if the cook is Mexicano
he might understand the raw egg
even better
the black man
can’t go wrong on the grits

Michele McDannold

Last update : 01-04-2007 18:02

Average user rating

   (0 vote)