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UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY
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DON PESAVENTO
Cousin Richard I inquired about you at the Bureau of Lost Souls but they had no record of your being found nor your alias, Man of Mystery, no clue as to your whereabouts last seen as a brilliant mind burning too brightly without your medication and soiling your pants before the family in the kitchen last heard from on a street corner exhorting strangers to beware of imminent extraterrestrial arrivals thru amalgams in their molars. Rumor was, you drowned in alcohol but you only drank milk and always said that’s why your smile was so beaver-white that you’d been killed on Rt.66 on a motorcycle but it was your brother Albert 21 who was de- capitated when you were 13 and that you ended up like your mom a month after her shock treatments found dead by the milkman at sunrise inexplicably on the front porch. How strange, all these years, I should think of you and write this poem. Incurable Romantic The doctors agreed: no hope for me, nor Rx for the vexing, quixotic malady; no elixir to abate the terrorizing empathy silver bullet for the wild, howling love holy water to exorcize the mea culpas incantations by which to lift the curse spells to dispel the romantic notion potions to quell the emotion-commotion antibiotic to quiet the passion-riot panacea for the haunting beauties antidote for the big, doting dope of me I left to get a second opinion when a venerable physician pulled me aside, and spoke of an experimental procedure performed in France, a virtual brain transplant, that might have half-a-chance of curing me. So I went, and returned in full remission, but relapsed during a fugue, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, finding myself in a pet store, holding a puppy, when a canary began to sing and I started seeing the world more green. Alcoholics Anomalous Like an alcohol breeze ahead of its arrival I felt the storm of you approaching the bed and braced myself against its fury, holding my breath as long as I could, dog paddling as your cold tsunami pounded down upon me collapsing under its heavy-water power, muting all sound, imploding my body immersed in its muscatel madness, surrendering to its vertiginous maelstrom, pulling me deeper into your absinthe vortex swirling me green-wine dizzy; my bouquet, tongue-trampled in your vulgar mouth swishing lust saliva-swallowed and spilled guttural-grotesque on this slave of your desire, only now realizing how much I liked it. Beautiful Wrinkles The crow’s feet of Christ squinting in the sunlight, the forehead furrows of Einstein that sprouted his green theory, the Sharpei eyes of Auden, wincing before Brueghel's Icarus, drowning, the machismo lines of Gable’s cheeks in The Misfits that sang of the desert, the labial crevices of O’Keeffe’s mouth that spoke the language of lilies, the elephantine fissures of John Merrick that showed us compassion, the tear-filled creases of Mother Teresa’s face that mirrored love’s sacrificial self, the sine waves of Da Vinci’s self-portrait that flowed like genius through his hair, the razor slits of concern, between the eyebrows of Lincoln, the wailing-wall countenance of Moses revealing the Commandments, the riverbed cracks of Mohammed's ears flooded by angelic dictation, the birch bark of Geronimo's cupped hands gliding like canoes through Spirit waters, the seductive lines of Anna Magnani's eyes in The Fugitive Kind that invite you to stay, the brow pleats of Marie Curie, raised upon seeing radium glowing in the dark, my mother’s velvet face crushed by worry over me, the deep crevasse of my father’s mouth in laughter, into which I fall, laughing, and my own wrinkles, rivulets through which lightning flows. Noir Necklace Its phantom stars orbit her alabaster neck like imploded suns revealing their essence; the Tahitian near her breast, a coalesced quicksilver-night lustre imbued with hues of pink and blue skies behind clouds of dolphin-green iridescence; the talisman touching her clavicle, black as an ebony spider-idol’s onyx eye, pitiless, reflecting your gaze imprisoned in its midnight mirror; the round shadow over her sternum a teardrop of Satan, Lucifer’s dying light’s last illumination, shed for himself as he fell from grace; and the indigo sea genie lying between the first and second ribs, jealously guards its territory with a viper's malevolent sight: black pearls, connected by a string; our hidden worlds, dark-dream colliding. Don is a 21st century Buckaroo Banzai, of sorts, former Rock singer from Chicago's South Side, degree in Lit. and Med. He has yet to perfect an Oscillation Overthruster. |
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© 2008 Underground Voices |
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