"americana" poems
What poem will you wear, when first we meet?
How will I recognition-you,
when you transverse my land?
Unknown our faces, our voices,
Only silent words electronic exchanged
Will lantern, it be: one, if by land, two, if by sea?
Will your ID badge, passport stamped and state,
Your chest bear a witness-sign?
The Arrivals Board flashes:
une poétesse est arrivé
eine Dichterin ist angekomme
a poetess has arrived
una poetisa ha llegado
Will there be a haiku in your hair,
A limerick exposed by raucous grin,
Or just ten words
allotted for your entire visit?
**Desperate to locate
Urgent to sensate
Matters I take
Into two cupped hands,
On the shoeshine stand
Climb and recite-shout**
Know me by my words,
Know me by the lilt lyrical
Of my American accented,
Canadian Tongue of my mother
Know me by my words,
Carved by time on my forehead,
Poetry is the blood of this fool's soul,
Hear me, find me, look upon me slamming
Poems are the thorns in my palms,
See me crucified, bleeding stanzas
Upon my shoeshine stand cross
Recitation resuscitation welcoming:
Benedicting Gloria, Gloria, Gloria
But if this should fail your attention to secure,
Or the TSA unappreciate my second coming,
Look for the crowd gathered round,
A man of moderate height, in a tall hat,
Beard scraggly, looking sorrowful
Reciting the Gettysburg Address
Either way,
Should be easy peasy to find me,
Grab your bag, off to short-term parking
This is how an Americana poet meets n' greets
Arriving poetess from a foreign land
Is there any other way?
------------------------------
Postscipt
**Alas, five years on and I know in my heart
that you are not coming...**
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 3:17 AM UTC
Cue the banjo solos
and the violin swells.
Sleeping children in
withering weeping willow
high chairs
covered in creamed carrots.
Young cherry blossom lovers
shout curses,
shatter floodgates,
let tears flow;
petals are brushed away
by the wind.
Widows and over-easy eggs,
crossword puzzles and
sad irony on fifteen across -
"Murdered, 'Ides of March.'"
The weight of their fatigue
growing dark and heavy
under their eyes.
A waitress breaks silence,
"More coffee?"
A sleeping child awakes,
crying under the brightness
of the morning sun.
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 3:18 PM UTC
Americana is not Greyhound.
People come and go like life,
Attached to the waiting random.
The road feels longer,
Relief of excretion and sanitation,
Home spreads everywhere.
Sitting strangers are stories,
Riding by unknown sceneries,
Thinking about their hometown,
Wondering if they will reach their destination on time.
Earphone music connects memories to a person so vividly,
It feels like a new chapter in my life,
Bookmark the important ones with parts of me,
It feels like I’m departing,
From something small to somewhere big.
It’s
already
an adventure
once the first
step is made
with you.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 3:09 AM UTC
You’ve got your ragtime, got the blues
Got country, rock, dubstep, each a different hue
Hip-hop, rap, Americana, funk
Disco, electronica, they all go bump
Indie, groove, folk and heavy metal
Screamo, emo, punk, they’re for the rebels
Pop, classical, tribal, thrash
Dark wave, bluegrass, techno, acid
Garage, roots, acoustic, dance
Alternative, jazz, ******** trance
Afrobeat, christian, reggae, jam
Honkey-tonk, surf, ska, big-band
Ambient, industrial, club, tin pan alley
But who’s ever heard of plow music?
Jul 18, 2012
Jul 18, 2012 at 10:51 PM UTC
Prosecco cocktails, être pour la danse,
cassis pour moi avec limoncello,
madame, passion fruit, and blood oranges
très grownup, breakfast at Tiffany's,
she is all sunglasses and Audreyfied,
me and George P., struggling writers,
checking if i got enough cash
or have to exit smooth, just in case,
maybe we leave our
coats behind, as ransom?
lincoln center plaza cross-dressers,
past the opera,
the sun, a balmy thirty five degrees,
laughing at us teasingly,
cause tonight and tomorrow,
*********** all the day,
winter kisses
in case we forgot,
early March
first belongs to the Ides of Winter
Afternoon of a Faun,
another ballet, origin,
a Mallarmé poem.
(you begin to comprehend)
yes quite so,
a perfect synopsis of the day,
Acheron imported from Scarlett Liam
who lives in the U.K.,
but comes to choreograph here,
for gloria Americana
sundown, soul cold back,
"lest we forget,"
but the dancers bid us adieu
with a rousing waltz, frenchified,
La Valse, une poème chorégraphique,
by Ravel, bien sûr!
aroused and heart gladdened,
return home for
for veal chop love
two hours of *** banging,
kitchen banishment, (Yay!)
chanterelles steeped in red wine,
coverlet for a non-vegan tasting,
English peas, red and purple potatoes,
and for desert,
a diet dream of verbal exchanged of detailed
I love you's
He: I love you,
She (happy), replies: I love you more.
(this repartee ballet, has been rehearsal danced before)
He: Why?
She: Because you are kind and generous, to street beggars, my single friends, good and smart, love art,
and never let me down, and love my cooking, leave space for others when you park, go thru life making waiters and ticket takers smile and laugh, sleep for hours your head on my hip, write me crazy love poems about veal chops
He: What's for desert tonight?
She: A ****
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 8:41 PM UTC
I etched patterns into a tree with a pocket knife that had a red plastic handle
Indentions such as these never stay
Yet eternally we press against the world
Hoping to make a mark that will shine in the daylight and glow in the dark
~
*I'm a shriveled slice of the Americana pie
With my soul on a swivel and the devil in my eyes*
Life was a son of a b!tch with fists that spat dirt when it spoke
And it ONLY screamed.
~
I'm somewhere between David Duchovny and Stephen King
And I'm trying to rip up manuscripts that I didn't write and I don't know who did.
Goodnight America. My patterns will explain my existence more than I ever could.
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 9:29 PM UTC
/ as i am pretty sure all americana
feels about "us":
oh 'ook, 'ere comes old man
europe,
no hemmingway,
and no so: as the casual english
expression solidifies exchanges:
just across the atlantic:
the, pond...
haven't the foggiest...
i'm "new" here,
and even i find these english prims
& pomps and idiosyncracies
a bit debilitating...
today i walked from my home
with a knife in my pocket...
why... why?!
apparently it's worse
than new york,
a belt as a qusimodo boxing
glove won't cut it,
given that that:
requires a formal introduction,
prior to a fight...
guns guns guns...
over 'ere we 'ave knives knives knives...
and politicians can't exactly
ban them... no, not really...
ban knives, soon you'll be banning
forks, then spoons...
and then...
the whole ******* kitchen...
we'll all be eating out,
in public, cheap cheap cheap,
cheap restaurants
like the slovakians eat in...
can you even imagine that while
in st. petersburg i didn't see,
not one mcdonalds...
same so in moscow:
not a single mcdonalds...
it was like a: relief...
a bit like only seeing africanos
only, but not elsewhere other than warsaw;
erm: afro-saxons?
sure! we have them in england,
plenty of afro-saxons...
so now afro(x)
is not pop-up frizzy hair,
bundled into a french bun...
type of... "thing"?
**** yeah!
hit the spot!
oh old man europe...
tired and yet, and yet tired
of his riches,
how craving the old trenches
of Ypres...
the belgian mud, the rain,
the rats and crows...
europe: lament over libya...
or even pseudo-neo-rome
lamenting over carthage being destroyed...
in reverse -
abbrv. into - orior carthago!
was it cato the elder
who persisted counter to this?
as heidegger would have put it:
that's not even question-worthy.
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 7:26 PM UTC
Americana folklore,
the modern vintage spoiled.
Early 2000's became the
dystopian 80's nightmare;
beans spilled by bloodied action heroes
part time self fulfilling prophecies.
No religion as a crutch.
We slay God as a fire breathing dragon,
and go to war in 1st world countries
because we're ******* mercenary psychopaths
America as patriotism is nationalism is
patriarchy is violence is a tautology.
America is America.
Has been and always will be;
stupid, violent, full of "grace"
[grace like plastic china].
They say Abe Lincoln was honest,
and they say Jesus wept.
Yeah, Jesus Wept, ************
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 6:25 PM UTC
The representative from Ohio
wipes his *** with Jose’s brown
palms after a bout of verbal defecation.
Luckily, Jose’s food truck houses
a small sink in the corner where
he can wash his hands in between
baskets of chorizo prepared
for rich politicians.
Sometimes Jose scrubs so hard dream flakes
rub off of his skin and he throws them
into the wastebasket to be picked
up by the sanitation workers who
eagerly jump like frogs in orange vests
into the waste of Americana. When
the Representative stops by for
a plate of carne asada, Jose’s
dream specks pepper the beef
and his salty sweat flavors
the inside of the burrito. He grills
the onions and green peppers with
a dash of minimum wage and
boils the rice in a mixture of blood
and pieces of his heritage.
He serves the meal in a white Styrofoam
tray and drizzles it with cheese flowing
from an open wound. The receipt is an unpaid
medical bill, the drink an icy reminder
of his future sipped through a straw.
The nightly news tells Jose
the Representative is bedridden
with a stomach infection. He
complains his insides feel like
a million ***** feet kicking the lining,
like unheard mouths with rows of
sharp teeth gnawing at the liver.
Jose to the tv: tonight we’re not starving.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 11:42 PM UTC
Fireworks were cool. Framed metal chairs with woven nylon Americana on watered lawns on the outskirts of the edge of Los Angeles. Hairy neighbors, Miller Drafts and dog **** Sally ****** Jim on the corner, and Jim drank, or started again and wouldn’t stop, but was good with a flat tire and chain adjustment. His kid had a glove like a vacuum. His daughter was a ***** Sally afforded a Mexican gardener.
Tim always had fireworks. He had gasoline and willed fireworks into his driveway. He had rope and a keg.
Schatzky keep her cool. She had to. She worked the 5th and taught everyone’s kids. She taught their parents too, 10 years ago.
Her son Donavan and her husband Keith lived for the 4th. Little pink houses and Jack and Diane kind of **** So they watched fireworks on flag hill while their neighbors ****** and got ********* and burnt their eyebrows. Donavan was ecstatic.
Each year the hill was gilded in gold for Donavan and Keith and and Schatzky, because each 4th brought fire and explosives in a way they could never afford.
Keith was more patriotic than most. He waited and enlisted and became a hero. Donavan watched on TV. Schatzky watched too. We won the first gulf war and everyone knew it: https://youtu.be/4gNhs2SRacs?t=1m10...
They celebrated the fourth in baseball stadiums. They celebrated life and heroism and purpose, and they celebrated with F16s and the best explosives the peacetime nation offered.
And Keith celebrated and embraced purpose. He even became a leader in the 2nd gulf war.
Sally stopped ******* Jim. Jim wasn’t married anymore. His kid lowered Tim’s basement and didn’t steal the copper.
Tim’s house was worth a fortune but it had a radon problem.
Schatsky was accused of drowning her dog, but she didn’t do it.
Jim still drinks; he’s smarter now.
They all meet on flag hill every 4th. The fireworks aren’t as good. A lot of build up for a finale that feels like an accident.
Water seeps through my jeans and no one can see my face as I limp home with a broken rubber sandal and a bucket of ice, a dog tied around my legs, and a kid face first on the grass, a wife whose friend drank our last beer an hour ago, a phone with two-percent battery left and my mom wants to show me what fireworks look like in California.
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 2:12 AM UTC
Wrap me up
You always do
Soap and smoke and I'm always happy and sorry
I’ll sleep in, and wake early and he's there
Dog with no sick in his fur
He listens and listens
It's all raindrops and July when it's warm
Shocked by your biology and your fear and your jealousy
Americana boy
Wrap me up forever
Dec 22, 2016
Dec 22, 2016 at 5:03 PM UTC
Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch
after Richard Thomas Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”
O, terrible-immaculate
ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat,
where cleanliness is next to Art
—a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart),
a Persian rug (made in Taiwan),
a Royal Bonn Clock (time zone Guam)—
embrace my *** in cushioned vinyl,
erase all marks: **** vaginal,
****** inkspot, red wine, dirt.
O, sterilize her skirt, my shirt,
my skidmarked briefs, her padded bra;
suds-away in your white maw
all filth, the day’s accumulation.
Make us pure by INUNDATION.
Published by The Oldie, where it was the winner of a poetry contest. This poem was inspired by the incongruence of discovering "works of art" while doing laundry at a laundromat with coin-operated washers and dryers. I was reminded of the experience while reading Richard Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer.” Keywords/Tags: hymn, art, America, Americana, laundry, laundromat, washer, dryer, appliances, clean, cleaning, cleanliness, clothes, clothing, underwear, god, godly, godliness, water, baptism, inundation, sonnet, analogy, humor
Nov 28, 2021
Nov 28, 2021 at 11:50 PM UTC
iPad Love
4:49 AM, and by the light of the silvery moon
and our iPad screens turned down low,
we snuggle side by side, our fingers glide so softly upon each,
each of our own devices, this technique,
it could be an app, teaching how to caress a human being.
No need to tell you in sound, out loud,
how you turn my heart upside down,
I'll just post a note of appreciation on Facebook,
you will see it faster, and besides, you got your earphones on and
could not hear my sweet nothings if I screamed them in high definition.
The newspaper arrives on the electric "doorstep" -
no longer will do we venture outside in
pink bathrobes and curlers, or boxer shorts,
a legal gesture of neighborly disdain.
Americana, losing another icon, as well as
insuring the unemployment of thousands of newspaper deliverers,
boys and girls, on bicycles, their first job, now obsolescent.
Your feet, so cozy and warm, touching mine,
the sensation, lovely and fine, duly recorded in a poem
that on my iPad I scribble, as my typos disappear, out of sight.
your ear, I nibble, something you hate and I love,
but electronically, it's done with no fuss or muss, and
I don't even have to move!
Sadly, I can find no app that will bring the warmth
of a cup of coffee to my night table, and the gun metal casing of
this invention is chilly, but still Steve, with almost God like vision,
you brought us closer in ways prior unimagined.
So baby,
shut it down,
turn me on,
make me warm for real,
glide your now practiced fingertips on my grizzled cheek,
whisper a phony "ugh,"
cause I know, you will read
this iPad love poem
and cherish us for evermore.
Nothing, something, even as thin as my iPad 2(!)
will come between us and the holiness, the uniqueness of
the human touch.
2011
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 4:30 PM UTC
the world is a wild and weary place,
fully sunk in spiral ******
fully strummed in skin water waves.
bound by death from the very first verse:
first love.
first this.
go forth my machines, be fruitful and jettison.
color says hang at the edge of our lips.
smell the books.
remind us; books.
& before the big blue vast takes it all, that
sunstruck lomographia light,
transposed no-makeup california girl, she
walks before me along the boulders of the wharf.
real summer breathing.
our bodies, piled
and starbleached ripe. [like heap of buffalo skulls]
maybe then a futuristic dinner, where everyone gathers in floating space pods
singing hymns beneath,
above,
between
the lights and music.
reality is: blacktop shards against my knees,
something burning as it trickles to my chin, man of me
living the city glisten, city green
& pink.
city midnight and barely breathing.
destroyers, we are.
and what? what am i, father? man of industry?
man of workwelded science? secure as the armadillo,
armadillo picket fence.
am i of halfbreed phosphorus?
americana?
built on love and hate and television.
nat geo channel: [a gecko licks dew from its eyes
on the coastal sand dunes of namibia]
money. women. go west young man.
be a hand tightening ribs.
be a quaking echo of mammalian design.
a paradigm of seed my fire.
quest for fire.
for uncut diamond; like foggy strawberry rock in the africa-boy's fingers.
or cut steel; phallus of toyish death between a brazil-boy’s fingers.
pulled teeth; bits of wet fruit in the young afghani’s hand.
& icecream trolley; pedestal etched iron; denim and *** and
microwaves ::::::
white man: what I got ? what I got ?
manifest destiny: gold bricks and beer.
blood soaked socks.
cyprus burnt umbers.
tribes decomposing at the bottoms of styrofoam cups.
like coin-op wormies.
& eighteen inch circumference blades make round rolling high pitched songs deep in the skin of old mother earth.
old baby cakes.
old life in slow motion, all motion, all
of particle cannon treatise.
40 ounce bounce.
watery us
below.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 2:17 AM UTC
Independent Grammy
Ameripolitan Billboard
CMA Triple Play
Indigenous K-Love Fan
Austin YouTube
Loudwire MTV Video
GMA Dove iHeartRadio
Canadian Country
Stellar BBC Music Magazine
Americana Blues
Tennessee Songwriters Association
Soribada Best K-Music
Texas Country
APRA Western Heritage
Texas Sounds
Academy of Country Music
Wine Country
Carolina Teen Choice
Pulitzer Prize
Latin American Unsigned
Alternative Press
International Western
People's Choice
American Tejano
ASCAP Country Soul Train
Soribada Best K-Music
Texas Country
American Songwriting
Branson Terry
Nashville Industry
International Bluegrass
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 6:27 PM UTC
Yo soy Guanajuatense
Nacida en una sociedad de Mexicanos
Born in a society of Mexicans were everyone is accepted by who they are
Not trapped as a slave or treated different
The American society can’t be compare to a Mexican society
Los mexicanos somos unicos
tenemos caminos hechos por padres mexicanos
Somo bautisados catholicos
nuestra madre es La Virgen De Guadalupe
la cual Juan Diego vio y lo combertio en un santo
Penjamo is city full of colors visible as the rainbow
Our flag known as the tri color is a important figure in Mexico
green signifies hope, joy, and love
white represents peace and honesty
red stands for hardiness, bravery, strength, and valor
the eagle was found by Aztec people
where they would see an eagle on a cactus eating a snake
Tenochtitlan was founded by Aztec people
Which is now call Mexico City
As we believe the history we also believe what
The bible tells us it’s a precious thing for us Mexicans
We tend to speak with god to find solution to problems
Not all cultures have a belief in god
I also find myself in a world full of pain a contradiction to war
Not knowing whether anything could be done
People are dead here and their
Everywhere there is war
Veniendo de México a un mundo con nuevas reglas
saviendo que tu vida a cambiado y estas evolucrado/a
en una cultura que quisas no aceptes
como dise un dicho
mas vale ser aceptado/a por quien eres que por quien te cres
all cultures judge others by the way they are
but we are all humans and have the right to be who we are
only God could judge
when people say you're brown
I said I’m proud
When they say I’ll never learn English
Look at me know your reading my words
Soy 100% Mexicana
con educacion Americana
pero echa y derecha
con cultura Mexicana
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 3:21 PM UTC
Lincoln Highway moved
more like a dance than a road
It drifted like the wind
corroded the earth
to guide me home.
The colors of the coming autumn
careened down, painting
the asphalt canvas below.
I had left Latrobe less than an hour ago
but crossed into a distant world
where the overgrown homes of old
remained among the ancient trees
breathing and watching me.
Weathered red paint running down
dilapidated barns like wax
melting from a candle's wick.
So star spangled Americana
it would not do it justice
to refer to it as just the sticks.
There was something profound happening;
the "American Dream" was dying here
and I was to bear witness
as the shinning city on the hill
fell into the metaphorical sea.
Spellbound in this catastrophe,
my ego still finds a way
to make it all about me.
I could not help but wonder
if Andy would remember
our talk about technology;
if Eamon and Bridgette would forget us three
walking hand in hand through the wood
and down the tracks,
battling back the inebriation
in the cold, hard black of a September night.
If these moments meant anything
to anyone but me.
My eyes locked on the horizon line
that rested atop a mountain peak.
I thought about how I left you,
left you three words short
of having me complete.
And I'd be lying if I didn't say
I contemplated running back to you
to speak what went unsaid
because home is not a place
but a thought in one's head.
You were home but I kept on driving
past the bones of a dying dream
letting my dreams die a little too
quietly inside of me.
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 5:25 PM UTC
*" It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews,
Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and
Illuminations from one End of this Continent
to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
John Adams – July 3, 1776.*
Webster Groves - 2016
The Townhall fountain dances
cheerily in the morning sun.
The red-white-blue shirted crowd
rises as one for the colors.
Laughing children scramble for
tootsie rolls and sweet tarts
tossed by a strolling clown.
Philadelphia, July 3, 1776
Carriages sped toward Philadelphia
where resolute patriots
would turn the pages of history
and tell an unsuspecting world
that a new nation had given birth to itself.*
Sousa strains peal from the marching Statesmen,
Girl Scouts guide their well-groomed mounts -
hooves echoing through concrete caverns.
Vintage firetrucks and autos
sound their horns and sirens
as candidates work the crowd, pressing the flesh.
*Each crass insult from the British crown
had tightened the noose on the colonial neck.
The middle ground was soaked with patriot blood
and revolution was the only course left.*
Barbecue clouds drift over Pat and Lee’s farm
Horseshoes spin and clang and frisbees fly.
A pot-luck feast with beans and franks
interrupts the pop and glare of bottle rockets.
*One by one, each patriot quilled the parchment
resolved to endure the costs of liberty -
knowing to the marrow that defeat
would spell certain ******* and death.*
We reach the lakeshore at dusk -
unfolding chairs - spreading out blankets -
strains of Americana drift over the lake.
then a pyro-technic extravaganza
blazes across the summer sky.
*Washingon’s tattered and bloodied men
cornered Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Then surrender - all British claims
to American soil banished to the tomes of history.*
The grand finale pummels the darkened sky
raising cheers and whistles from the crowd
Toddlers collapse in parental arms,
car doors slam, engines ignite
and head-lighted caravans, turn for home,
spiraling off in every compass degree.
“Happy birthday,” America and endless happy returns
"from this time forward forever more!”
Robert Charles Howard
Jul 4, 2016
Jul 4, 2016 at 2:07 PM UTC
you talk like a kennedy.
east-coast americana.
salt spits from your
weaponised mouth.
go back to your compound
and lie on the surf
from whence you came.
chunky sweater man.
i’m not your jackie,
nor will i piece your head back
together. your old-world
dreams return to the sea.
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 11:03 AM UTC
Gathered daily along Via Longura
Over antipasto and a deck of fifty-two,
Surly men conspire with
The **** barista in Café Settimane
And the neighborhood nonna cursing from a window,
Even the resident pigeon lady
Atop her cobblestone perch,
But not with me, una ragazza Americana
On the 98th of a hundred day stay, and unprepared
For the faint buongiorno that came out of no where
Or the dealer who winked at me
I swear—And I settled in as a regular
With a smile on my lips, a grunt from Nonna,
My standard espresso waiting for me on the counter.
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 10:39 PM UTC
Calling nearest janitor
response to minor spill
unidentified indefinitely
a k-11 spill
It bruised burned
extinguished extraneous existence
left minor mess
ignore and maintain
absence of mentality
Shuffle left
avoid sticky shoes
unattended children should abstain
from carmine fingerpainting
Chocolate rations rose
red rose
again this week
enjoy the rapture
thank you come again
A leaf falls
unnoticed
A **** at americana
not from it
belittled no napoleon
Big boy voices only
at the counter
naked pockets mean
no thing
nothing missing
no thing messing
me sing
last mess
cleanup, aisle twelve
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:26 PM UTC
a firefly.
aglow in twilight air,
burning dust up brighter
so night flickers faster.
americana and pansies.
summer.
you.
Apr 18, 2013
Apr 18, 2013 at 10:29 AM UTC
Her prairie hair is grass gone to seed,
her voice vibrates on a fiddle string.
She taught you the meaning of homeward,
Americana Pollyanna, you tangle her name
in the cold northeastern stars.
She spills tall tales across the porch,
the air smells of thunder and cherry pie.
As a child she caught fireflies in jars
and has a scar in the shape of Alabama,
Pollyanna.
Tonight,
snow clouds roll through Chicago, the air is thin.
You stand in the window on a two hour layover
and look Homeward.
Pollyanna Mystica, a sky full of constellations
that you have already begun to forget:
watermelon seeds spit from the porch,
a spattering of insects on the windshield,
beautifully and infinitely random.
Freckles that trail down her knees and bare feet,
meandering paths you have followed before.
Pollyanna Diana, an fat moon smiles down on
the Kentucky dirt, rutted and red
where she will lay down her tired bones.
May 29, 2012
May 29, 2012 at 12:58 PM UTC
Progress
by Michael R. Burch
There is no sense of urgency
at the local Burger King.
Birds and squirrels squabble outside
for the last scraps of autumn:
remnants of buns,
goopy pulps of dill pickles,
mucousy lettuce,
sesame seeds.
Inside, the workers all move
with the same très-glamorous lethargy,
conserving their energy, one assumes,
for more pressing endeavors: concerts and proms,
pep rallies, keg parties,
reruns of Jenny McCarthy on MTV.
The manager, as usual, is on the phone,
talking to her boyfriend.
She gently smiles,
brushing back wisps of insouciant hair,
ready for the cover of Glamour or Vogue.
Through her filmy white blouse
an indiscreet strap
suspends a lace cup
through which somehow the ****** still shows.
Progress, we guess, ...
and wait patiently in line,
hoping the Pokémons hold out.
NOTE: This poem is almost entirely fiction. There was a Pokemon craze when my son Jeremy was a little boy, and I did see birds and squirrels foraging in parking lots from time to time (and sometimes fed them myself from my car’s window), but everything else is fiction. On the rare occasions that I went to a Burger King, I would go through the drive-in, so I wouldn’t have known who the manager was, or how much time ***** spent on the phone. I think the poem probably started with the image of birds and squirrels squabbling for scraps of food in a parking lot as I waited in a line of slow-moving cars, then evolved as I imagined the hassle of going inside to “speed things up.” Keywords/Tags: America, Americana, American, culture, society, vanity, youth, progress, fast food, video games, Pokemon, MTV, music videos, glamour, models, supermodels, fashion, transparency, see-through, bra, breast, *******
Apr 30, 2020
Apr 30, 2020 at 9:43 PM UTC