Anatomy of a Dream
Instinctively
immersed
in words
acting as
artillery
we scheme
with calculated
turbulence initiate
disturbances then
to compensate create
art
objects
Anatomic discharge spread
at large, everywhere to the despair
of no one, isn’t kosher but here you have it
written all over your face, moles, wrinkles, dry
lips, sunken cheeks, tooth missing, yet emboldened
by disparity between what you see and believe, excited,
canoodling on a Riviera beach with some luridly hot chick.
Hand me one dollar
I’ll render it free
of your mad tyranny
then will gladly give
that note to one
who will thereby make
sense of things like
right left day night
no matter how weak
lifting him from poverty
Don’t give me any holier than thou ridiculous irreal excuse
I see through your spurious ruses every time with gold eyes
May comes
upon the wind’s
uproarious waves
blown helter-skelter
I’ll never find shelter
I convince myself
hanging like a kite
caught on a branch
Make me
whole oh
you pixie
so bright
Take me now
blue moon living
under the bed and
coursing my veins
Run rodent run
collecting suns
in an Easter basket
you’ll donate
Periwinkle sprinkled
on my breakfast cereal
you taste great
despite no sugar
Mainframe computer
don’t calculate my future
I wouldn’t want to know
when it will be that I go
Whirled in the jet stream of peace
dreaming a voluminous life away
industrious only in my slumber
I failed to collect her number
so left the pub unfulfilled
knowing I’d never partake
of those luscious emerald lips
and pearly pear-shaped hips
Papa said
don’t disrupt
the dead
Enter Einstein, hair lightning snakes
that permeate the entire globe.
He wobbles inside light of a strobe,
and I’m anything but entertained
for I’ve had enough of dark matter
obstructing my indispensable gravity.
1864: Bucket of Blood Saloon peak of the silver rush
Tennessee Jake ambled in half sloshed, allegedly shot
his woman down, frowned, then commenced to croon.
Blasted from the guts of a cosmic volcano I strode throughout
oceans
of intuition
this delusion
inhuman
a prison
restricting
resurrection
the impression
final decision
whether to accept
the one thousandth of one percent that nature has revealed to me.
Man Ray seated in a Paris café, sipping a drink,
chatting with Breton, Ernst, Duchamp, Eluard,
plotting the course of Dada: “The intellect has
nil to do with discovery” muses one. “Physical
concepts are free creations of the human mind”
says another. “The distinction between past and
present a stubbornly persistent illusion” chimes
the third. “Time and space are not conditions in
which we live” offers the one with an iron face.
Our strategy should be not only to shun empire
but to lay siege to it deprive it of oxygen shame it
with art with music with literature and yes even joy
My goal is to live like indigenous peoples with developed
economies, not few, not savage, not ostracized,
having permanency, stewardship, faith,
and no not looking for salvation:
the elk in the field both
friend and food, in synch
with the reality of season’s change.
Nothing about nature ever so perplexing
as it is to the estranged youth of today hibernated
in a dark room and only cell phone with which to commune.
Once I’ve run plumb out of luck
the only way out is straight up.
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Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including Taj Mahal Review, Poetry Quarterly, Literature Today, Poetry Salzburg, South African Literary Journal, The Frogmore Papers, and many more. His books of poetry are Ballad of Billy the Kid, Monterey Bay Adventures, and Mercurial World.
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