MARS
I MIGHT AS WELL BE ON MARS
He is straight out of Kerouac or Bukowski
this salesman of doors Or even Donald Trump’s
White House He is slick in an: I’ve been to prison
kind of way He is likeable almost awesome Silver
hair slicked back Black co-ordinates Rockport Socks
a tartan check
Burly around the edges Teeth glint in the sun He says:
Ya we’ll take all the crap away! Will you Donnie? Will
your doors keep me locked in for the rest of my days? Or
keep the knavish seekers of my fetid soul at bay?
And what about the crap you intend to take away? Bring
petrie dishes for tissue samples +a box measuring 5 foot 3
Recently lost an inch to crooked knee Or perhaps I will not
replace my rotting doors! Blasphemy to Donnie
I have more important things to spend $4,261.45 (+HST) on
Venice awaits A gondolier named Enzo comes with the Palazzo
He looks pretty slick too +knows his way around canals There is
also the one way fare to Mars to consider
I have applied for passage to the Mars space station +they will
only take 10 seniors so that children born in the first 10 years will
know what it looks like to be crone to be coot
In the brave new world there will be no word for aging +wisdom will
become an oxymoron In the brave new world love will be a polysyllabic
word #whatweusedtofeelwhenwewereintimatewiththereaper
__
You die. You’re born again and all
Will be repeated as before:
The cold ripple of a canal.
Night. Street. Lamp. Drugstore.
(Stanley Kunitz 1985 Pulitzer Prize Poetry)
Summer 2017
songanddancegirl 