Flight of Ideas

by Robert T. Jeschonek

looking up briefly from the

  murk

  and I know that she has several

  doctorates,

  what went wrong?

  And the blonde two inches

  behind

  has no sense and is not only free

  to come and go

  but free to drive a car and

  I see the tattered shambling man wind his way

  mumbling

  past the cart lady

  almost clipped by the blonde’s red racer

  and into Red's Bar for his first of the day

  at eight-oh-five in the morning.

  So sharp.

  So arrogant

  Those two items

  Throughout all eternity for

  A curse on you and all your descendants

  How dare you!

  A curse on you and all your

  How dare you

  A curse

  The fury of the howling storm

  Whisper more like hiss with all

  Pass

  And I will tell you as you

  Items in my twelve item lane

  Fourteen

  Fourteen

  Counts fourteen

  Of boxes bags cartons cans jars

  The latest rainbow fall

  Two Items Over The Limit

  *****

  Memoriam

  Cloud’s in the sky

  Like a snowy treetop

  Pruned off and left to rise

  Up up up.

  Sky’s around cloud

  Like a dim window shade,

  Pulling down slow-motion

  Over blue

  Over blue ozone

  Over blue ozone leaving only pinprick holes.

  Maple’s under sky,

  Crinkled dry and orange brown black

  Like candycorn trickortreat

  Bobbingapples mellowcreme,

  And random colors splashed on

  Like a Monet.

  We offer our condolences

  To shortsleeveshirts and friendsandfamily

  Of backyards, picnics, and barbeques.

  May they

  May they rest

  May they rest in the Southern Hemisphere.

  *****

  Idyll On A Lake

  In the reaches of a memory,

  One perfect moment:

  A sky, bright sapphire,

  A lake of crinkled turquoise,

  Friends on a bobbing craft.

  A restive orb reclining in the sky,

  Warm, low and drowsy with July-ness,

  Bathes everything in lazy, golden rays.

  A foamy wake folds across the prow,

  Sending up a fine, cool spray;

  Glittering water moves under-boat,

  As tree-thatched banks swim slowly by the sides;

  Everything is silent,

  Only lapping waves and an outboard motor

  And what birds may wheel overhead.

  The world is a distant rumor;

  All that is or ever should be

  Is here,

  In the golden, tranquil haze

  Of this single perfect day.

  *****

  Niagara

  Such power,

  Hurtling in sheer blue sheets

  To the stones below.

  Could there be this much water

  In the world?

  It rushes to the lip

  And dives,

  Executing a perfect double gainer

  With an infinite half twist.

  Water roars like a huge crowd,

  Yaaaaaaaaaahhhh,

  Like a hundred thousand people

  Leaping off a cliff,

  All arms and legs,

  Four hundred thousand,

  Fingers and toes,

  Two million strong,

  Writhing in a vast fleshy tide

  Might equal the force of Niagara.

  Could this be heaven and hell?

  Could all the world’s souls

  Race here when they die,

  To pour down into the mist

  And spend eternity

  In cold white foam?

  *****

  Lighthouse

  A porcelain spire scratches the Maine sunset,

  A sole gleaming tower

  Jutting from the coast of broken stone;

  One side blushes lilac,

  Kissed by the rose and violet

  Which are melting into the horizon.

  Gulls shout and yap,

  Careening about the structure's peak,

  Cries forming a chord

  With the FOOM

  sssshhh

  FOOM

  sssshhh

  Of the waves which slap the rocks.

  The lighthouse stands,

  Vigilant and solid,

  Tall and alone,

  Ivory pillar in a sky-domed temple of nature.

  *****

  Sea Night Smile

  Deep blue in darkness,

  Midnight blue,

  Each crest rises

  From sparkling plains

  And rolls sleepily,

  Spreading a crease,

  Catching first moonlight

  Along the fold

  And then white foam

  Still spreading

  Showing more white

  Unrolling

  So one joins another joins another

  Joins another

  Into one long

  White smile

  Of the sea

  Which rises gently,

  Just a quick

  Mysterious

  Wise

  All white

  And then it falls upon the sand

  And spreads again,

  A fleeting one-time lacy

  Blossom.

  *****

  Mad Sea

  The ocean is rabid,

  Foaming with toothy, white crests

  That leap

  And gnash at the shore.

  Breakers snarl and snap

  At cowering coast,

  Trying to tear it off

  And drag it away

  And grind the sandy stuff

  For its supper.

  The sea is a huge, dark beast

  That growls and foams

  And lunges,

  Again and again,

  Held at bay barely

  By some unseen, straining chain.

  *****

  Shifting

  Remove

  All those

  And this

  And every...

  Scatter and erupt into

  Waters and rocks and blue

  Upness,

  Clapping rather than

  Ticking, yawning --

  And there!

  An arrow smiling and

  Ultra-holographic,

  Pointing in all directions at

  Once,

  As one...

  Shift!

  Return!

  Shift!

  And you type

  A mirror of grass.

  You are

  The slippery layer.

  *****

  Punctuation

  Toss your head and bay

  At blue skies

  Or dark,

  Just bay...

  And no crackhead whinny

  Or doctorlawyerboss golf fret

  Or overworked possession-jealous peasant

  Or any other variant peering upward

  For anxious purpose tied to job performance

  Or Point-A-to-Point-B-osis.

  Sky’s the limit.

  Now is the time for all good men

  To know nothing of truth

  Or tolerance.

  Subtlety is a lost art

  And we are sheep

  And wampum is king

  And we are sheep

  And the noblest mark to which we can aspire

  Is the body of Arnold

  Or Madonna.

  M
eanwhile,

  Sky’s the limit.

  Toss your head and bay

  At skies

  For time is not money

  And wool is not dresscode

  And numbness

  O numbness is not joy

  And we are all

  We are all

  We are all

  Just commas

  In the Big Bright Book.

  *****

  Equation

  Left to their own devices

  Monkey see, monkey do do do

  And here’s the end result

  Or should that be by-product

  Assigning values X and Y

  To certain variables

  Certain coexisting phenomena

  Aka killer instinct

  Or to put it another way self

  Preservation

  And of course reproductive imperatives

  Aka species preservation

  And Z the Z-Factor

  Which allows commission of any act

  Again in the name of self or species

  Any act imaginable.

  Any.

  And Q is Qualm

  Or counterforce,

  Maybe conscience if such a force

  Exists,

  Then X+Y+Z=N

  In which N represents

  Capacity for nonsense

  Meaning disregard

  And disinfect

  And carrot-stick

  Giving way to

  Extraordinary heights of

  Accumulation and atrocity

  Justified but unsustainable

  And Q or Qualm doesn’t really

  Figure into it

  At all

  So

  Funny thing is,

  There’s a bloodless subjugation

  An enforced incarceration

  Home to work to home to work

  Or work at home

  And give the people what they want

  They say

  The monkeys what they want

  But bloody murder they would scream

  And take up arms if they were

  Told

  Instead of tricked

  To do the same.

  *****

  The Unpopped Kernel

  Call down the righteous thunder,

  Ignite the Jiffy Pop in a burst of

  Light,

  Make us all blink and fidget and back away,

  But whatever you think of your place

  Upon this ragged Earth, whatever you

  Envision for tomorrow

  Or the implacability of deep time,

  Know that your own lightning crackles

  In your head,

  Fizzing from brain cell to brain cell,

  Creating this reality as you perceive it

  Which is after all reality

  And causing you to exalt as the

  Popcorn kernels

  Crunch between your teeth,

  Butter melting in the corners of your mouth,

  Yesterday only the charred black pieces

  Left in the foil tray

  That you will not remember

  A year from now.

  *****

  The Children’s Table

  Five hundred years from now

  When someone sucks the last

  tender

  flesh from the last frog’s leg,

  and the last tiger’s balls and rhino’s horn

  are auctioned off and devoured

  in a media circus,

  the new trend in fusion cuisine will be

  Babies staring out from misty Heaven,

  Wearing masks of their faces at ten or twelve or

  Twenty

  had they lived,

  Eyes like frosted pearls peer out through eyeholes

  and from there through peepholes punched in

  the white picket fence

  Behind which their parents and everyone

  they ever would have loved and hated in the

  world

  had they lived

  Smash their way through minutes

  Swat aside days and years like

  Pan-seared Sino Tex Mex Cajun celebrity,

  raised in climate-controlled pesticide-free

  only the best of everything

  Tinseltown farms,

  kept lean and juicy and pampered and

  soft,

  billed “the other veal”

  and shipped to market at the height of popularity

  and no one

  can resist a bite of the ass or breast or thigh or

  Face

  It’s what they’ve been hungry for all along,

  They can’t get enough

  Flies,

  Like a faceful of smoke,

  And they whisper one to another

  in a language more like the whirring of

  crickets

  than babytalk,

  not about the people they watch

  or the lives they could have lived

  or the warm red seas of

  Mother

  but about

  Pain,

  The brightest color

  Sharpest flavor

  Loudest sound,

  A firework that always exceeds your

  Expectations.

  *****

  Shadow of a Shadow

  Cool drifting

  Smoooothness

  Sliding out from heels

  Like a drawer and just as

  Full,

  Full of dark things silent

  Things

  You cannot see,

  Shad

  ows of broken hearts and twisted minds and

  souls encased in ice

  Encased in flame

  Vibrating motionless gyrating deadstop

  souls

  All there foreshortened or stretched

  On pavement snow carpet dirt floorboards

  And we whisper

  One to another

  To ourselves our dark dark selves

  The secret jokes

  That only we find funny

  Only we,

  And the punchlines always have to do

  With pain

  And death

  For we are opposite the light depend upon it too

  And for that

  The curses we greet each other with our form of

  Good morning hello good night

  When we cross and

  kiss

  Beneath you

  Damn the sun

  As you damn your

  Maker.

  *****

  Why Kassie Loves Sharks

  The guy tailgating me in traffic

  Cursing me out,

  Mouthing each

  OBSCENITY

  Overemphatically

  So I can’t miss it in my rear-view mirror.

  The triplecrossing backstabbing fourfaced

  FATASSED

  Bitch at the office

  Who never misses a chance

  To get in a shot

  Or get me in trouble for some piddlyshit bullshit

  And then comes to me for help

  Every

  Five

  Minutes.

  The ex-boyfriend who gave me goosebumps

  At first

  And still uses

  PET NAMES

  In cell phone booty calls

  That may or may not be veiled threats

  Which makes my skin crawl in a whole different way.

  Do you know

  Sharks have multiple rows of teeth

  And for each tooth that is lost

  Another rotates in to take its place?

  Do you know

  Sharks have no legal system,

  Office politics,

  Organized religion,

  Concept of time,

  Ulterior motives,

  Envy,

  Layoffs,

  Or sexism

  That we know of?<
br />
  Do you know

  If a shark stops swimming,

  She will die?

  *****

  Shutterbug

  After she was gone

  We realized we had no photos of the photographer,

  Always out of the frame

  Behind the lens at holiday get-togethers,

  Steering us by the shoulders into staggered rows

  Telling us to bunch together and angle in

  And say Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

  Instead of cheese

  And everyone laughing for the zillionth time

  And she caught that moment like a Here I am

  I’m right here

  That moment like a dove and pressed it

  into the camera Blow up the photos big enough

  and you’ll see me

  Into the camera like a magician

  with steady hands and knowhow If you blow them up to

  wall-size you’ll see my

  reflection waving back at you

  from eyeglasses

  Counting down

  from three taking a deep breath

  and squeezing the shutter gently Waggling fingers at you

  from teeth and glassware

  And the last

  one she took was as good

  as the first, or maybe we only

  think that because My image is here forever

  in buttons and brooches and ribbons

  Because it’s

  us in the picture

  the stars of our sock drawer turkey leg

  prayer meeting

  safety pin lives Forever in windows and

  curio doors

  obscured by the camera stretched reversed upended

  We’ve recast the part you once played

  And honestly we’re pretty deep-down pissed off

  Here I am

  You had to go and hurt us like this by

  Leaving

  Forgotten

  But not quite gone

  Never forgiven.

  *****

  Transfusion

  You, usurper,

  Subtle thief,

  Your very existence