Poetry
All works copyright of Greg Amici.
"Liner Notes"
Michaela flops over the sister Ellen's couch with me flopping on she.
The right angle slump and thrust.
Brown skin triangular framing the taut white rump.
The distraction of...
Wicker chair
Wicker, wicker and more wicker leading to...
The end table with the velvet lamp.
Me think of New Orleans and fin-di-siècle whore. Nice, but wicker ruin good time for me.
And
Frame of her father of the porcine nose and her mother with Elsa Lanchester bouffant.
His hand around Mother waist and they had sex I can't believe it. And I do the result.
Wicker, wicker and I think of POW's with bamboo shoots stuck between finger and nail.
I would imagine...
It's the father's pig face I can't bear. Don't want to be fucking anyone's father and when I
see him while I flop that's how I feel.
She no pig face. Make me happy. Somewhat.
Did I mention that it's Valentine's Day?
It's Valentine's Day and over the couch she chews on the satin scarlet pillow I splurged for at store.
The store for last-minute lovers.
But those
Black crate paper silhouettes of Washington and Lincoln
Cut out by Ellen's brain-damaged son in art class
Distract.
(Is my seed any better than Ellen's or her husband, Allen, the graphic artist, would-be fine
artist, whose finger paintings frame the window that frames the blackness of the poorly lit
city block I yearn to re-enter?)
My seed is marching the march in time with cuckoo clock hands.
"Michaela, I cannot continue under the current circumstances."
Into the black box we shall go.
"Didn't you like the dinner? The clams weren't fresh?"
"It's not the fish, sweetie, it's the pork."
(I actually say that.)
"What are you talking about?"
"About going to my place."
"Why?"
"Because it's too dark in here and I need to see what it is I am fucking."
(I only think that.)
Really,
I want to go to my place to kill the winter fly that will buzz there alone until it has babies
that will torment me till spring when new flies arise.
(I don't say that either.)
Wicker chairs.
I mumble, grab the Pinot and go. And she follows...
Michaela no like jazz. But I play what I play in the control room.
"A Love Supreme"
I repeat and repeat along with this dead man. Car wreck. (Read liner notes last time she
here flopped over. Readthroughfuck.)
She say she don't like my jazz and would prefer hit radio.
(Or was it liver cancer? Yes. Not Clifford Brown. Other liner notes!)
On the quilted bed (who gave that quilt to me, my mother or my grandmother?)
Before me her prone on fours.
"A Love Supreme"
(He had children. Liner notes.)
She bangs head against the cabinet above,
Small space
Asunder
Torn gold wrap floats to bed.
Land by her taut leg.
She pick up. Blue in the face. Blue green.
See, See--
-- WEgoBEAR --
(He spoke in tongues. Liner notes.)
I fucked maid that morning. Magnum rapper, Michaela find.
"I'm gonna be sick."
But I say,
"Leftover from a love before we met. Maid found rubber. Forget to toss. Maid here today.
Look how clean is room. See?"
"Where's my bra?"
"Must have fallen out of a book – I'll use anything for a placeholder."
"I'm gonna throw up those clams."
"Oh, that careless maid. From Rio de Janeiro. She will be fired."
"I spent all day cooking you that nice dinner."
"Don't go, Michaela."
"At least you don't owe me money."
"One thing I am not is a liar. "
She gone.
Softening Coltrane and softening.
Pick up phone.
Boa noiche a minha amiga.
Maid busy. She gotta samba.
A Groan Man with a melting popsicle.
I only lie to women.
Naima.
"My Cardinal's Heart" (Dizain)
A tiny coach of blue and white we drive
The friends we left at mass still wonder why
With every rumor that you will survive.
Above the highway in our coach we fly
Beyond the desert where your heart will dry
I've only had this feeling once before --
My cardinal's heart will burst and redden snow
For you a fallen kiss and nothing more
I'm here to stay you're there and free to go.
“Tom Seaver”
You've had a twitch since you were three,
It goes to spazzin' when the school bell rings,
A bully steals your sneakers,
Girls shoot spitballs in your face,
Sister Irma whacks your knuckles,
'Cause you're lined up out of place,
And you ask yourself --
Well is there life beyond TV?
The days are getting longer—grass is greening,
Spring is in the air and you need cleaning,
The playground's rockin' out it starts you dreaming:
Become your life-sized poster of Tom Seaver.
You've built a shrine to the New York Mets,
Troubling your mind are the fortunes of the New York Mets,
All your energy is flowing through his mighty, mighty arm,
They can cancel spring and summer if it somehow comes to harm,
And you ask yourself, well is there life
Beyond the fortunes of the New York Mets?
Become your life-sized poster of Tom Seaver.
Wiggy, Wiggy, Wiggy you must someday learn a lesson,
(Yes you must)
That the hopes one takes for granted can be easily supplanted,
(Best for us – in the long run it is best for us)
Slippery as a spitter and elusive as a curve,
Though they stick with you like resin,
Only childhood will they serve.
(One, two, three, no more batters driven batty
One, two, three, hope is off to Cincinnati)
Be still your heart now settle in,
No competition here you're going to win, win, win,
A bee outside your window tries to muscle through the screen,
All he wants to do is sting you – all you want is to be clean,
And you ask yourself – well is there life beyond that screen?
"SALESMAN STUCK ON THE LIE"
260,000 miles on the dashboard
Of the lemon
I can barely afford
I'm just about hanging in
Taking calls from a mandarin
Whose carpet's too big for his gym
No shoeblack on my hands like my old man
I'm not giving up
As long as I've got coffee in my cup
We'll hope that the year that just began
Will fly
As fast as the year before went by