Acknowledgments, Wearing Bedroom Slippers

Every lawn is attached to another lawn.

Then there are times when the day never seems to
get around to midnight. Every four thirty flies past
my ear and the bottle of gin hidden beneath a bush
in the park wishes it were a pair of ordinary bedroom
slippers. Venice forgets what a canal looks like and
the San Andreas Fault can no longer do a somersault.
My cavities behave like a reflecting pond. The hair on
my chest becomes fur-lined and foot-warmed. Sleep
is anywhere you can fish legally and rhododendrons
make darn good vacuum cleaner bags. Grass grows
even in the kitchen drawer. Yellow taxis suddenly
have the ability to bloom like daffodils. Crepe myrtle
makes great Christmas stocking stuffers and a large
dragonfly is elected archbishop of Boston by what is
described as an unanimous vote. A soft-eyed oxen is
willing to raise me. A farmer stands in the middle of my
song. And even though I am honestly very grateful to
a number of people for their guidance and support, I
never once stop to thank the editors of several journals
where some of these optical illusions first appeared.


First Published: http://www.cosmoetica.com/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

The Interrogation

When he comes out of

the coma he is taken

back to headquarters

and after hours of

interrogation he

admits to an animal

he says is always

female wearing rouge

just on the tip of

imitation where

thumbs become knees

and arms transform

into throats the

hairpins & lipstick

serve as mere symbols

intended to politely

pickpocket the five

edges of a neuroses

tucked away in a shoe

box collection meant

only for aristocracy.

　

First published: http: http://www.onefortytwo.com/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

Possible Translation, Switching Identities

1:

a recent study concluded that homicidal spouses
are more likely to wear heavy mascara

2:

a hotel lobby reading the newspaper should have
been the most obvious suspect

3:

rows of dead poplars like bare bars against the
windows of a maximum security unit

4:

so when a dog chases its own tail is the act in
itself considered betrayal

5:

sometimes it’s so cold I sleep in my socks and a
hand-knitted deserter’s cap

6:

most people who say they have no secrets are
really empty oaths of office

7:

and when I break the fortune cookie open the tiny paper
inside reads “just think, you could have had a V-8”
　

Poem first published: http://www.origamicondom.org/
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Melancholy-Meets-Exoticism (Piano Version)

-Dawn arrives peeling off night's lingerie.

-Or a marble relief of a goddess sniffing lotus.

-She rings my doorbell pretending to borrow sugar.

-Neat rows of houses with the lawns all mowed.

-She is barefoot with a gardenia in her hair.

-At a picnic spot by some monumental ruin.

-I tell her I have a sister named sky.

-Or a wheat field rippling in yellow.

-But instead, I offer to wash her feet.

-With piano music playing in the background.

-I pour some liquid soap in my palm.

-Or through a dusty village on camel.

-With a face that belongs on stamps.

-As rivers meander then change their course.

-Or the wind belly dancing across the dunes.

First Published: http://www.subtletea.com/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

Trying To Describe Ether

By the time the teacher’s copy with the inked-in
circles turns up the coin-op bed has become
part of the narrative The motel room gets a
bad case of scurvy and the mildew in the
shower feels like a lot of velvet The
stamp-sized pool in the courtyard
Imagines it’s winter and that
Canada desires Boxing Day
On the other hand by
the time the desk
clerk gets this
paradox,
our false identity
would have been discovered,
Along with the $2 bill tucked in a glossy
Golden Gloves magazine between the mattress.
　

First published: http://www.origamicondom.org/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

Splendor In The Sass

In this scenario she prides herself in her ability to
do one-arm pushups and I’m convinced everything
but an erection is a conspirator. She has a dog
named Richard the Lion-Hearted and I have a great
white shark extracted from a tooth. We both wear
identical blond moustaches and cute little webbed
feet. Neither of us have ever seen a glass slipper
but we do know the difference between war and a
six-hundred pound turtle. War makes a tasty soup.
The turtle will sell its shell to the higher bidder. And
everybody says something they don’t mean. “All I
want out of love is a guy with a zero after his name
and an exclamation mark humping in his head”, she
declares, when her deep sea driver comes up for air.
“Yeah, well I’d consider being bi-curious at a fetish
flea market if it meant having bedtime stories read
now and then”, I reply, dangling my private eye from
the handcuffs on the bedpost. And our T-shirts are
tone-deaf. And our accordion recital is a failed lounge
act. But we still long to be included in the next brave
new world, after we’ve probed it with sharp needles.
　

First published: http://www.strangeroad.com/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

"What's My Line" Sonnet

So try to set ordinary sand on fire. Staring
at Van Gogh's ear. Easter in a bunny suite.
Table your apron and sing for some soup.
Fast-food wrappers blowing around the
convent. A window with bars. And the brain
does the talking. In late summer in southern
Siam. I'm a bass band. She's a campsite.
And rain pours in like salt. Gallows with a
hangman's noose in the backbeat. Pills that
know how to shallow? And his boyfriend is
French-Haitian riding a kite. Bet on liver.
Walking my dog bone. And it took years for
the disease to become famous. So who is
Amherst? With all three thumbs up. And
every one is a party animal. And the rest is
art history class.
　

First published: http://www.listenlight.net/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

More Plots, Some Inconsequential

Think of trumpet swans in a public garden.

And see rain falling. Or imagine a turbo

engine. A view of the road through a

windshield. Cooling steel. Safety brakes.

" Well, I simply look in the rear view

mirror to see where I've been," she says

from her coy cockpit. At dusk, men

gather on the street corner to talk...

the edge of an oceansomebody else's lawn.

We wake-up at the same moment but to

entirely different fantasies.

Or maybe Cortez arrives to plant a flag on

an unknown shore while wild animals & one

machine watches.

First published: http://www.arbutus.net/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

Probably Something Sharp

Wearing wingtips like you mean
business.Diving into a fountain
full of coins.A boom box that
prefers the classics.Math that
uses numbers living in exile.
size matters says the billboard.A
garbageman sporting a briefcase,
The depth of unknowing.A ceiling
under oath.Puking for pleasure.
creatures that peel.Some tangerine
toast.A bite of strawberry sole.
trusting the complete honesty of
handcuffs.A pork flack-jacket.A
low-income toenail.Next time try
a common cold in the powered
form.Bark that sheds.A bimbo
freezer.Anger gets sorry.Ragtime
checks in to rehab.The secret
fraternity of zippers.Smear testicles.
world perks that don’t expire.A
special promotion for the dying.
Or virtual living for a better suicide.
　

Published in hard copy: http://www.dandelionmagazine.ca/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

Devoutly Mute

A newspaper
still on
the steps
Behind heavy
chenille
curtains
An open book
of fifty-odd
pages
several sepia
photographs
of a trail
child poses
scented
candles on
the mantle
One tray
of hot tea
& sweet cakes
In muddy shoes
meant for
the forest
Two figures
in red hats
Until trees
erase them
　

First published: http://www.origamicondom.org/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

The Little Hand’s Minutes

In this scenario the rest is silence. Poetry begins the story.
Bored are the plastic armies as the fate of a brave new
world nods off on a stool in some sleazy bar. I’m
dressed up as an expressionist clock and she
wears a water faucet filling a bathtub.
Not ever wanting to rise. Grazing
on the back side of the moon.
Rose bushes in our bed.
Or each silver frame
could have a
human
face where not
one of the four walls
has nerve enough to look
closer. Either way, if we need
any further omen, the tarot card
is willing to suddenly appear coarse-grained
and furrowed like father time’s hands. Diplomacy
sings, washing its hair in the kitchen sink. The lather
Whirls down the drain’s metal hole. Then
sometime later, the gears start a
ticking sound that spreads
through every room
in the house.
　

First published in hard copy: http://www.lichaos.com/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

Drawing Motifs

You hardly ever see deer coming
watching a drunken dance then fall. If lust opens
doors then does alcohol speed up the process?

Everything about it is mysterious
And then put some skull in that blonde,
he responds with a grin.

Civilization should be an act of transition he says.

I say the sentence should fit the crime
(so long as a muscle moves)
see the possibilities.

　
First published: http://www.origamicondom.org/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

Blazing Panache.White-Hot Copurage.

"I've spent the whole day as noir as night", she
repeats, as if the audience didn't hear her the
first time. We're acting out the stage version of
beat up & grown up. In this adaptation I become
a short poem about her father who is a traveling
salesman of articulate jealousy & desire. He never
wears the same pair of socks twice. He eats
dinner with his chair facing away from the table.
He is near enough to the cardboard props to feel
their rage. Elegance is our model. A book our
national treasury or maybe our customs studiously
sleep in the footnotes. What's important is every
mysterious adulthood is but a jagged piece of glass
murdered in bed. Nothing is luminous enough to
shine at heart and even I something want to be
nothing too but the moral of the story is to never
forget that even Joe DiMaggio had an Adam's Apple
that thought it was too cool to go to school. Oh
yeah, and don't worry, the applause will drown out
any sounds the curtains make as its being lowered.
　

First Published: http://www.cosmoetica.com/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.

Gashes: A Work-Week Planner

Monday

Dumb throb the flower black. Try not to creep any fungus
in your slideshow festival. Pick up a dandelion deli to dimple.

Tuesday

Start a fight club. Cut your toenails only if you have
a built-in crayon sharpener.

Wednesday

Catch up on your gold fishing big sex scandal. Leave your
umbrella at home. Pretend you are 5’ 5” or being chased by
a herd of wild buffalo. Try not to sneeze.

Thursday

Call-off an impromptu wedding and serve mazipan instead.
Scratch a flea. Wear your high-heeled Afro wig if it rains.
Don’t eat boot soles.

Friday

Try to shower with a ghost. Skip breakfast and have
a cuddly teddy bear piping hot. Tell your dream to
wipe it’s feet before it picks up the carving knife.
Remember to remind yourself all day that real crucifixes
have gray streaks.

First published in hard copy: http://www.lichaos.com/
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Copyright 2009 by Maurice Oliver. Rights Reserved.