OFF THE PIANO ONTO THE ETHER
Dear Radioland, hello. It’s 5:45 a.m. I squat here
watching the whole thing from the position
of watching television. Pitying the morning light,
the ringing of the telephone, the blowing of the wind,
the infant screaming in its crib renouncing all limits
of a musical coda. It’s anyone’s story as beautiful and
inscrutable as a young person from Mars in love
with memorable endings. Werewolves seeking exotic
friendships. I want to go home and immediately
become a message in a bottle. Anything to not be
omitted. Meditating on the cold holes in my socks.
I am molten, stupid, dangerous driving out of the city,
past farms, river and fields, just waiting to be heard.
I don’t need to know every moment you consider leaving.
TEATIME ON THE SHOWBOAT
for Andrew K. Peterson
Tap damp cigarette along the tub edge
like someone in a terribly sophisticated play
proclaims, “I don’t need a piano to sing!”
My soul is a small boat lost at sea, a crude
radio going full-blast all day drumming
its energy medicine as I grow old by the great
whale of the piano’s immortal solo. The sinking
oar of a colossal adagio an inch or so above
the waterline adorned by a suppressed heaven
of kisses. The marvelous starlet’s beautiful despair
setting axiomatic waves over this absolutely ceaseless
saga. I can hardly see what good it would do
to cry out darling, darling, to cry for the sorcery
of the open sea, the stoic Romeo of the shark.
Dear Radioland, hello. It’s 5:45 a.m. I squat here
watching the whole thing from the position
of watching television. Pitying the morning light,
the ringing of the telephone, the blowing of the wind,
the infant screaming in its crib renouncing all limits
of a musical coda. It’s anyone’s story as beautiful and
inscrutable as a young person from Mars in love
with memorable endings. Werewolves seeking exotic
friendships. I want to go home and immediately
become a message in a bottle. Anything to not be
omitted. Meditating on the cold holes in my socks.
I am molten, stupid, dangerous driving out of the city,
past farms, river and fields, just waiting to be heard.
I don’t need to know every moment you consider leaving.
TEATIME ON THE SHOWBOAT
for Andrew K. Peterson
Tap damp cigarette along the tub edge
like someone in a terribly sophisticated play
proclaims, “I don’t need a piano to sing!”
My soul is a small boat lost at sea, a crude
radio going full-blast all day drumming
its energy medicine as I grow old by the great
whale of the piano’s immortal solo. The sinking
oar of a colossal adagio an inch or so above
the waterline adorned by a suppressed heaven
of kisses. The marvelous starlet’s beautiful despair
setting axiomatic waves over this absolutely ceaseless
saga. I can hardly see what good it would do
to cry out darling, darling, to cry for the sorcery
of the open sea, the stoic Romeo of the shark.