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Poems
by Maurice Oliver
Polemicist
At first,
sexual desire is
sublimated into
social ritual, in a
flesh-to-flesh abrading,
but sometime later
the feeling is punctured,
and I stand there
holding this award against
the surface of history
already frayed and
showing fresh fatuities
it drags until it tears
to the bright red
that is sunset.
Telekinetic
You're wrong,
ashes I have heard
downloaded emailed
to friends & it's
designed to be tough
with features ascending
into permanent record
almost inextinguishable
it holds the sky in place
packed in birth-breathing
life then canned
in a urn it describes
the entrails of
complete prophecies
as we chop our own wood.
Anomie
Perhaps, if forced
to continue one
would follow the other
reaching deep into
the frabic of analyses
in intricate cross-stitches
of permutational voids
so whole fabrications
can sew sequences
into mute syllabics
creating elegant parodies
like a fashionable flaw
wearing beauty's
sweetest dress and
the rest is boutique.
Eurodots
Unfortunately, in
the original version
no mention is made
of sensitive passages,
but later, in a fax of
memory red lights blink,
thrills are misquoted,
and a kettle boils
as goose steps march
pass predestination to
a place where every
face is a gesture
and a small crowd
of accusing fingers
point at the parade.
Mysterioso
Meanwhile, I say nothing
entangled in each other
watching imagines become
saints to children
tilted in red or blue
then turning up brass
in floating figures
raised in air hands
working against time
upstream downstream
wrinkled as winter apples
perishable bodies radiant
and light shines through
until jewels sparkle
piercing tongues for love.
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