Greg Oakes
the amazing rubber-headed baby’s return
(poem for the new year)
mrs. butterworth’s naked in the pantry chasing down a spiny aloe
plant w/ silver nipple rings & a look that screams "pancakes need
to breathe!" - a teaspoon of fur & a jug of hot sauce, that’s what
makes the new year new. i finagle the inflatable medic out of its
fishnet humidor & check my blood for the umpteenth time - i’m
tired, my head throbs like one of the lesser antilles on a rum jag
& everywhere i turn the verboten stare of a headless barbie doll
tracks me w/ the tenacity of a gut greased up w/ the flu. right now
dials are being fondled by the good folks down at dupont that’ll
set your eyes to dancing like buddy ebsen dressed as the tin man
locked inside a microwave brought over on the boat from oz - in
our living room a kiosk opened for business peddling skin mags
to the inflatable medic & now the paperboy refuses to shine my
shoes, he stands there balanced on one leg holding a dr. scholl’s
insert pad like the lovechild spawned between norman rockwell
& the fumes from a randy can of pam - you show me three nuns
playing pac man w/ the hiccups & i’ll show you the information
age in all its splendor, i’ll show you our kitchen as it transforms
itself into the creepy profile of peter lorre drinking a milkshake
at woolworth’s lunch counter backed by a girl scout jazz band’s
riffing to "now’s the time", & through the window i can almost
smell jimmy the ink’s olives being carried ashore by the martini
traders who camped out by the wharves looking at a microfiche
of two boom cranes hoisting a scaffold of flashing white lights.
jeffrey little
A DIRTY PICTURE
I try to call my mother from someone’s backside.
I slip a quarter into the dirty asshole
then lift an ear off the skull to speak into.
Hello? I say. Hello?
I toss the ear down into a roiling sewer
and shake my head in disgust.
People have always been in love
with visions of hell, it was only a matter
of time before it came to this.
Mother’s probably got her head in the toilet
this very minute calling for me,
the sound of her voice getting trapped
in the little brown bubbles.
And I can’t even muster a fart
to tell her everything’s ok.
Mather Schneider
