Van Stanley

Aye, Let’s See

What do we wake with today?  Symptoms of le grog,
the architecture of an uneven staircase,
footsteps in bound photographs of text,
pockets of silence in man’s history — oh, for christ
’s sake, to explain even yesterday would
interrogate the womb.  Yesterday billows out
the exhaust pipe of the vehicle of life, man!
in a nutshell — typewriter hammers at a wall
built out of the mortar of my affections
&, aye, “something there is that doesn’t love …”

& you, ethanol, you poisonous cure!  Plain naughty,
the serpent of Eden offered Eve a pint of beer
& both homo erectus ”saw they were naked”
we know what’s up — saw what they were made for.

& in the dream last night a film crew set the dry brush
up into a set for some spaghetti western
& I ran about chasing so much attention that
by the end they’d made the film without me
& won the awards without me.

But it was my dream, so … You know
I told myself yesterday afternoon I would write
a poem to include the word brusque which
has more of the sound than the qualitative
& since to describe anyone by it would include
more of the powders of pampering than commentary
you’d really have to shake yr grin at something
to use it, like, say in a smoky room, a siren throwing back
all of the catcalls she’s ever deflected, back
at the crowd, walking in place with such poise
we call it dancing, & the boys raise their last sip
to her, cheering their affections arm-in-arm
she orders them a round from the microphone
& behind the bar the bottle cap cracks with a
sweet hush, a jet of vapors, going “brusque. . .”
the cap hits the ground, & the night goes running.