Ten Poems a Month

Tea on the Tombstone

2007-06-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

TEA ON THE TOMBSTONE

Tea on the tombstone
Crumbs in your hair
The blanket crushes chopped down grass
Scones are piled with care
You don’t drink
You don’t eat
You just watch and smile
Until I put you
Back down below
And leave you for awhile

Peter Joseph Swanson

things grow

2007-05-02T08:55:00.000-07:00

THE TALE OF THE VINE

The vine climbed the drain
It wanted to hear the man play Bach
The man finally died of old age
The vine, it stayed, and the stone silence
Turned it yellow and cold

One day punk rockers moved in
Squatting there to be Zen
The loud punk warehouse
Got on some of their nerves
The vine revived to the vibe
Of their vibrant vegetarian vibration
Until the kids tore it down to hang from
In a mass punk suicide

Peter Joseph Swanson

it's dark down there

2007-04-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

TAKE YOUR PILLS

Take your vitamin D pills now
You who toil all day long under pillows
The sun hasn’t touched in you a decade or two
And your bones are softening into velour and glue
Take those little pills and then go back
And breathe the fine dust just under the floor
Only those with new money can see the bright of day
The hot beach is for those afraid of dark toiling

Peter Joseph Swanson

and visit me here -

http://peterjosephswanson.blogspot.com/

DARKSIDER TALES

2007-04-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

DARKSIDER TALES
By Peter Joseph Swanson

book one

There should be more tales for the darksiders. Capes get lonely when left on wooden crosses. A gate is creaking to open for a witch with prosthetic eyeballs. She is bringing Little Red Riding Hood sticker-books for all the good children. Lightning flashes and lights up the stained glass lilies - and lights up the blood on the floor that has clotted to red rubber, until a cape passes by and smears it into shapes that tell bad fortunes. In a year’s time, the castle will be left entirely under lake water. That is the tale until the next poetic chapter. That is the tale until the spreading of man’s new bat wings. They were grown in a dungeon cauldron, but I’m digressing. There should be more tales for the darksiders. A ruby ring from your treasure chest, or a beer, might buy one for you.

book two

There should be more tales for the darksiders. The garlic on the town gate will stop the drinking. So the nervous lovers go to the crossroads for beer and kissing. The hearse is pulled through them by two white horses. They are nervous vapor and don’t feel such large cart wheels. And there is a tale from all the mortal mad passion. Leather boots and fat cod pieces close with laces done forcefully. Black lace bodices blow from the branches in tatters. The moon shines like the skin of the wicked. The mist covers the orchard’s naked apples. That is the tale until the next erotic chapter. That is the tale of the lovers six feet under. A love ballad still leaks from their blue lips. The tale ends with no hope for reconciling.

book three

There should be more tales for the darksiders. The dragon keeps the man from his silk sheathed scepter. The fountain gushes up milk and honey in the Land Of Milk And Honey. Tattoos cover up more than the rubberized fashion. Patrons line up but there is no leaving the city Sodom. Art openings run out of boxed wine at midnight, both red and white. The tale goes from one warehouse to an older one. Beer cans are crushed. A China doll wig was left in the rain on a doorstep. The tale says her lopped off head was still snug within it. The rest of her is for critical appreciation. Her fit torso shows a tattoo of a man and his long dragon. That is the tale until the next symbolic chapter. That is the tale of art imitating slam dancing. The tale is also about a new place for cheap drinking.

book four

There should be more tales for the darksiders. But the plague came and ruined chances for blooming. An official war replaced angst with false glory. The battles were all about who had the sharpest elbows. The tales are about who got the most attention. The pretty man in black lipstick sang to no one. But the throng who sang back was an urban sprawl choir. Tales for the darksiders were lost in the layers. The tale is encrypted until much excavation. The accurate digging won’t happen for a hundred years. For now the press is content looking eastward. The seven knives to end war will be uncovered. But they are donated to the white marble museum. Other tales are told in audio tour headphones. Creative people still hide under the floorboards. Cheap beer is remembered with odd fondness.

me me me me me Peter Joseph Swanson

2007-02-09T13:53:00.000-08:00

http://peterjosephswanson.blogspot.com/

visit me

we only remember the art

2007-02-04T07:31:00.000-08:00

ELEGY FOR MEMORY

in 1978
the super-8 movie was bought at K-mart
it clanked through in 3 minutes and then was done
that seems brief, but, at the time it did impart
more in my head and a new dream had begun

I flung myself off the hill, the model ship had tipped
with the shocked passengers, I was one of the losers
no one knew what I was playing so they couldn't nip
and shame, then pound me into a masculine bruiser

skinny boy that I was, I wanted to be Shelly Winters
she seemed nicer than anybody else that I knew
but such longing caused odd mental splinters
and the parts never did undergo a rendezvous

is it sad that such memories go off to no place
and sit until they're rather distilled or forgotten
if we can only go back and somehow improve and replace
stupid old ideas with something more intelligent or Zen

the super-8 is worn out, it wasn't made to last
I no longer want to be tumbling like Miss Winters
I know now that even if real ships did tip over
finding all the exits in time isn't the end of a story
there is no end to any story, there is no story
and I now remember it as rather unimportant

I lay on the side of the hill, head down
only pale grass and a creek are below, drying
I'm trying to listen for a consequential sound
The ungrounded feelings are mystifying

35

KINETIC SCULPTURE

that one on a pole looks like a piece of Las Vegas
not half as good as that car dealer sign, "Don't Egg Us!"
but it's put in a gallery so very expensive
we all peek and creep away inordinately pensive.

36

TRUNCATED SONNET TO A CHOPPED OFF HEAD

When your head is chopped off, how long do you live
far from your lungs, there is still air in your brain
for a few minutes, maybe, thoughts will detain
far from your heart, can you feel emotive
do you remember the time you got lost on the train
do thoughts splash at you like real sips of champagne
do you feel combustive combative compulsive
do your eyes creak open to see the mob so destructive
do you think hard with your cheek on the street
or will there be such glory in your immense defeat
will there be a final silent minute for complaint
or do you just black out, abruptly, in a dead faint

and that time that you were on a train and got lost
you couldn't see, your windows thick with your frost
you were running from feeling and reputation even then
even then you lived feeling short of some pure oxygen
falling down the hallway was enough to almost exhaust
with fire on your head, pounding your own Pentecost
but the fire didn't bring God, only a final amen
losing your confused and bejeweled diadem

37

JANE JANE HYDROPLANE

Jane Jane had her head
lopped off under a truck
The fireman bagged the thing
along with pounds of yuck

was she drunk, sold to a carnival
or was she brainlessly buried alive?
No one really knows - how can they for sure
but we do know Jane Jane couldn't drive.

some people work so hard to be famous
they have no real trade they can do
they can't do anything but hustle themselves
but the marketplace will tolerate so few
of those butterfly creatures to idolize
most don't give a flying-flip-flam at all
selling shoes at the mall is close to glamour
but it isn't cobbling so it won't scratch
the high that some people need so they're
irrelevant to the nations with cold numbers

38

JOAN POEM ETERNAL

Joan Crawford is anxious
she chewed the lens to bits
because it showed a line from her eye
where the ends cease to convene
because Father Time gave the role
to a new generation
a bright blonde missile
from the other side of the tracks
like herself pure doubt
pure ambition
elbow grease
and forward marching

the plastered creature looks goddess
on white sidewalk posters for desiring
the paper texture has a lovely smooth grain
in a stencil the shapes feel eternal
even if it should stain in city rain
her glare is violent bullet hole suffering
languid martyrdom during attractiveness
and will burn an ache through you
at 24 frames per second
the pulse on her face is enough
to glow like a vision of divinity
diaphanous fan manna breadstuff

39

HOTSIE JOAN BAD

Joan had a lifelong crush on Bette
a lifelong crush hotsie and bad
so sent gifts to show she was horny
but unrequited hots make one sad
so she also plotted Bette's doom
revenge is the same word as love
you'd think she flew high on a broom
there was nothing she was above
I read this gay twist in a book so smart
full of gossip that could not be mistook
irony hits here as kerthunk as a dart
Crawford's MEN was the title of that book

40

Marlene Dietrich at 75

snip tuck snap tape
staple pinch strap
pull pin tape again
white fur, yellow wig
vodka bottle - friend for pain
tug pull lift squeeze
tweeze paint draw again
white pills - friend for pain
yellow green - friend for day
blue blue - friend for night
two marble bolsters
cold pallid pillars
barely propelling
strap encase wrap
swaddle sheath in stardust
encase strap wrap again
icicle bauble winking stars
jewel glass shimmer
barely pulsing
barely infected
shimmering tourniquets
famous legs

41

WAX MUSEUMS NEED DUSTING

Babs was too young to play Hello Dolly
unless she hitched as a lil pip
killed her husband by ten (a famous diner by then)
so the all waiters sang big for her tip.

Vanessa Redgrave had a perfect role
as a fashionable Camelot queen
she's spoiled then pampered
bitchy then hampered
always decorous in the decorated wide
wide wide wide wide screen

Madonna was good in Evita
although the woman can't act
but posing without chat is where it's at
and mere posing makes a star diplomat.

42

POP

tell me talent ain't true blue sky
it's just something to finagle and buy
the way to market how a shopper should think
is not art but reminders that we like a good wink
then a singer can make lots of glitter and money
but not be rich in singing genius or funny
but we keep our eyeballs glued to the screen
asking ourselves what does this glitz mean
if you want art then listen to Bach
if you want the hips and a junk food shock
then jump up and down at the bar to disco
pop and art
is like extra virgin olive oil
and Crisco

43

BACH'S NAME

the clergy aren't remembered
beyond the old ladies who
caretake kitchen table altars
until they and the flowers die.
It's a fact, beyond my being a brat
name one pastor Bach played for
hum a Bach tune, you can, even
if you think believing in belief is dumb
even atheists and satanists love Bach
Bach thought he was in a stupid place
and went to jail for cracking the
pastor over the head with a stick
it's a fact beyond my being a brat
it's all in the German public record
that's what happens when you go to jail
the name of the victim is also there
but I bet you don't know who he was

we only remember the artists
we only remember the artists
we only remember the artists
remember that

44

THE SEQUEL TO WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLF: THE DAY AFTER

Dick: I'm too hung to move
Liz: My liver just popped out. Can I name it Jeff?
Dick: How did this entire bottle get up my nose?
Liz: But is it empty?
Dick: Get the yogurt
Liz: My cheek is glued to the floor
Dick: No, it's your wig - you've been mopping with it for hours
Liz: If this were a drinking game, the entire Russian army would be dead

Peter Joseph Swanson

2007-01-07T07:19:00.000-08:00

13

BOUQUET

leave me on a melancholy plate
even if it is paper and has a crease
from being folded in half for the pocket
leave me on a quiet plate
nowhere near a loud buffet
leave it all behind and go where
a sea of dirty pigeons walk
with heads down
I can drink beer under a tree
and keep cans in a neat pile
like an aluminum bouquet
my only possession
and your only possession is
your all-you-can-eat

empty cans last longer

my garden I uprooted with my stubborn pig snout
sowed, weeded, and plucked with great heaving
was an entirely fanciful garden, leaving my mouth full
of pink tinker fuss dust, after nobody wanted to
buy my phantom daydream wares at the super store
Most people today spend so much
of their money in the warehouse
sell it very well in bulk
it’s very fresh
but my little patch of
stale la la
was oddly overlooked
time and again
it won't ever be
on a superstore shelf
so you won't see it
I have very odd ideas why

14

CURE FOR THE PLAGUE

Dirt for sale. Dirt to heal. Dirt is always the much better deal.
Clean and fresh, slather your flesh, dirt from the floor of your Temple. Medicinal dirt, mystical dirt, dirt to heal all that is simple.

Dirt that is red to keep you not dead, consumers will see it and cherish. Dirt for your gold to keep you not old, dirt that is gaudy and garish.

Jump in it, roll in it, squeal like a pig. Pray in it, stay in it,
when cured, do a jig. Parade in it, wade in it, try to give birth.
Stomp sacred circles, eat, consume the Earth.

15

BAD PATCH

The yellow leaves are blowing over the dead body.
The dead body breathes. The dead body chews leaves.
The pulse is as dry as strings in the air.
The black cat steps on the arm of deceased.
The dead body breathes. The hand closes to squeeze.
Cat strings pull tight to chime harpsichord release.
The witch throws garlic on the mad screams.
Fangs fall out and succumb to disease.
The witch wakes up in a pine box.
In and out of rows with the profane.
In and out of the earth with the same name.
Mad screams, splinters and scratches.
The hot blood disease stops her cold clock.
Another one of her very bad patches.

November 2006

2006-11-05T12:08:00.000-08:00

25

MOM’S LABOR UNION LIVING

Labor Union living but not loving it.
Mom owes her life to the cause.
If her Dad hadn’t been in his union, then
she’d have grown up eating rats.
Before unions, how would a girl like
that, in that working class, have lived?
They all certainly would not have
had that warm house with a safe fence.
The American dream of old was hers.
And the stories of childhood poverty
are told with odd nostalgia and complaint.
Too many sisters for one dry roof.
At least tales can be told at all.
At least they all had a clean dress.
That world was not that long ago.
That world is being disassembled today.
The new robber barons will take and play.
Metal working unions are fading away.

26

SPOOK HOUSE

my older brothers bent over backwards
and most earnestly goaded me to jump
out of the moving spook house car
if I wanted to really see something
in a secluded realm neat and bizarre
they claimed they already had
and had snuck a gratifying adventure
they just badly wanted me to
trip up and win a head-to-toe suture
or maybe rid of me altogether
to get lost in the dangerous dark
to get run over or shocked into nether
on a circuit of high voltage spark
and then they wouldn't have me to
embarrass them, as I did.
a gullible dodo bird joke

27

DERAILED

the spook house rails are so bumpy,
and you wonder how you will conclude
peace is a dirty little word
U2 always somewhere on the airwaves jangle our parts off
the dates on tombstones are not the important years
the man didn't want to know old people or ever be one
the apples are spotless, so no bugs will fly in our eyes
he loves flowers so goes to the graveyard to steal them
until he went blind from eyeball blood vessels bursting
light your votive candle in the dark, it's only 99 cents
his last words before he died was,
"I want to brush my teeth - I don't feel fresh."
three minutes later he set a date on his tombstone
the radio is turned on and it's U2 jangling
like a pocket full of coins and keys
peace is a dirty little word
the rails felt unsure, but you finished

28

PLOW UNDER POSSESSIONS

sitting in a fresh garden furrow
playing as big brother drove the plow
the ground is a city of fat earthworms
then the ridge of dirt flopped on my feet
my shoes pinned down there, oddly stuck
brother wouldn't slow down but yelled
the tractor bore down with loud speed
I valued my life as my only possession
I squirmed until I gave up on his braking
I pulled my feet out without both shoes
they plowed under too deep to find again
I went home in dirty socks, and no pity
father angry with me for losing my possessions

29

TWO HOUR POEM OF HOPE

I felt bad
but then I ate something
two hours of hope

30

THE CHER SHOW SONNET

I grew up on a farm that was rather exhausting and dull.
It was pretty, with nature, but besides goats, was lonely.
Instead of tractor mechanics, my flight of fancy was prone
to copy more glamorous things and aspire to be beautiful
and imagine the hay wagon that the tractor would pull
to be a stage with a backdrop all mod and so overblown
where I would sing like Cher into the corncob microphone
and I pretended I was in a shocking gown beyond wonderful.
My older brothers would grimace from the feedlot next door
and plot how they might make me quickly leave this earth.
I was an embarrassment to myself, and more so, to them.
They didn't want another whacked-out Cher Show encore
they had no idea the little boy was finding brief mirth
real farm boys don't think about trying to transcend.

31

ROMAN CITADELS WITHIN GREEK LABYRINTHS WITHIN ENGLISH SECRET GARDENS: GO PLAY INSIDE YOUR CARDBOARD BOX

nobody knows that you're in there
except the family dog
you stay until you're hungry
or too sad on the damp ground
under the glue smelling paper

one cannot have enough vases
to hold all the dead roses
from all the car crashes
given by friends of the family

if the vases are dreary
they can be buried just past the backyard
in the pet cemetery with the
brooder house chickens that stuck
under the incubator bulb

the bitter rhubarb grows there, with
dandelion pell mell impertinence
and tiny violets with great manners
due to their being so impermanent
but the orchard mower takes them all
along with the rows of twig crosses
so that our ideas of pre-crusade history
conform to the ideals of the crusades
we feel safe with our corn knife weapon

behind the house is the shade
to play such games of tears and woe
until father and brothers ridicule
time to chop the weeds
bale hay and suffer physical pain
like a loathed Nubian slave

you can run to the kitchen
and shove cookies down
sugar is your only true friend
the dog is in the grass
watching intently and pensive
as if you might be suddenly torn
clean off the face of the earth

32

REALLY

Pipe dreams
in lead pipe flags
so round and long
not to get rusty or
old
but it's okay
because it never goes away
they say taxes and stuff
don't
but I say sunday school
because that's where
all of our differences
come from
today
wounds are the same color
in all places.

Really.

really.

Asked what the best part of Christianity was,
Gandhi said, "Jesus."

Asked what the worst part of it was, he said,
"Christians."

Like shopping. Like holidays. Like a family
isolated from its neighbors. We feel okay about
ourselves because, at least, we didn’t blow up
giant old Buddhas.

2006-10-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

SCREWED UP ELECTION POEM

Requiem for Dracula
Requiem for Dracula
Requiem for Dracula.

the villagers sleepwalk
to the constable doubletalk
the mob wanted gore, but got bloody

the suffrages nilly pilly
spider web elections dead serious silly
as the wolfmen ran foaming for glory

punch card
punch card
punch the back of the hunchback

haunted house poll booth
punch paper with primeval fang tooth
black birds fly away paper in beaks
lift these sunken lies and crash the tree
in four years you were only longing for
this season of catastrophe

requiem for Dracula
stake through the heart
requiem for Dracula
but still act out the part

crystal balls broken
cut glass eaten and spoken
anchors away - anchorman away
to exit poll survey
won't stay, won't stay
nazi clones pray and go hungry
eat crow, eat crow, eat happy meal crow

the flag waved proud, like a long coffin shroud
and covered the rotting politicians
the Corporate Dazzle of Fantasitica
Super America and dioxin gasoline black cauldrons
and pills for old people who can't have them

red, white on blue, it's said
the victims have been led
bank teller-like lines
to the black box
the elections are dead, undead.
poisoned poisoned poisoned
with anemic sleep
turquoise fingers
turquoise toes
poisoned and dead

The Daughters of the Revolution
denied math a true resolution
so we swung from the magnolia trees
blood splashed roots
strange fruit southern trees

old bats at the tea party
have sat on their blue blood crumpets
and gone mad all bad

two rabid mammals crawling to dead center
mangy with the holes of the dissenter
all the zombies - moms shopping for soccer
and a partridge in an extinct tree
go to sleep the sandman will help you.

2006-09-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

Hidden River coming soon from Lady Aibell Press, an imprint of Chippewa Publishers

for more poem pictures -
http://www.200poems.wordpress.com

me, myself and I
http://www.peterjosephswanson.blogspot.com

- the next ten poems -
11

THE CLEVERNESS OF MOTHERS

Left hand, right hand
a modern idea that had less value in past times
Danger came equally from both sides
up and down is very different, don't trip and fall
the Neanderthal woman looked up into the tree for nuts
and a panther was there just itching to pounce
she would have frozen in fear and been a sorry lunch
but she had children in tow to think of, first
as the panther shot out at her, she grabbed
its front paws, sharp claws, and held fast
she ducked and spun and the animal wasn't able to
catch itself and it landed on its head and hurt its neck
the panther scampered away, smarting, as the
children marveled at the cleverness of mothers.

12

MORNING GLORIES OF WAR

Morning glories of war, great hope in blue blooming before the heat of the day - it feels so good to know you can go blast open the gates of a lurid storybook Hell so the bad guys can go trip off their feet deep into its warm watercolor glow.

Today you are killed on your way to work reaching for cream cheese and you won't go to your God, they say it isn't the real one, they do, they say you are dust. They bide their time as they move in then wait to take over as we did and others did before us. And they'll step over us like dust, or so they threaten with great feeling and television volume - and when you catch them you can eat them like boiled chicken - without faith in it, every hay bale bug to body knows how to build simple building block molecules into more complex ones, and the building blocks of life are all the same all over, hay bale bug to body we are not of inorganic dust but are all made up of interchangeable parts to daily cannibalize, any one organism can serve as food for any other type, directly or indirectly - in the gastronomical sense, all life on the entire planet is incontestably one since we're all the pieces of thousands of arms and legs of the very same smorgasbord within arm's reach always rearranging the very exact same molecules over great time. Over great time. Over great time. In the fleeting pockets of the air of cool blooming mornings we willfully forget this. We thrill in the glowing idealism of a new war to fix the great disappointment of the last one, and the last one needs fixed before we can move on about it - or at least so the color magazines and crabby radio can tell us how to think. Idiots and ideologies, our desire to go out and fix history to match our flag will never be through. Hope blooms eternal and the morning glory is the color of blood losing its atmosphere.

13

BOUQUET

leave me on a melancholy plate
even if it's paper and has a crease
from being folded in half for the pocket
leave me on a quiet plate
nowhere near a loud buffet
leave it all behind and go where
a sea of dirty pigeons walk
with heads down
I can drink beer under a tree
and keep cans in a neat pile
like an aluminum bouquet
my only possession
and your only possession is
your all-you-can-eat

empty cans last longer

my garden I uprooted with my stubborn pig snout
sowed, weeded, and plucked with great heaving
was an entirely fanciful garden, leaving my mouth full
of pink tinker fuss dust, after nobody wanted to
buy my phantom daydream wares at the super store
Most people today spend so much
of their money in the warehouse
sell it very well in bulk
it’s very fresh
but my little patch of
stale la la
was oddly overlooked
time and again
it won't ever be
on a superstore shelf
so you won't see it
I have very odd ideas why

14

CURE FOR THE PLAGUE

Dirt for sale. Dirt to heal. Dirt is always the much better deal.
Clean and fresh, slather your flesh, dirt from the floor of your Temple. Medicinal dirt, mystical dirt, dirt to heal all that is simple.

Dirt that is red to keep you not dead, consumers will see it and cherish. Dirt for your gold to keep you not old, dirt that is gaudy and garish.

Jump in it, roll in it, squeal like a pig. Pray in it, stay in it,
when cured, do a jig. Parade in it, wade in it, try to give birth.
Stomp sacred circles, eat, consume the Earth.

15

BAD PATCH

The yellow leaves are blowing over the dead body.
The dead body breathes. The dead body chews leaves.
The pulse is as dry as strings in the air.
The black cat steps on the arm of deceased.
The dead body breathes. The hand closes to squeeze.
Cat strings pull tight to chime harpsichord release.
The witch throws garlic on the mad screams.
Fangs fall out and succumb to disease.
The witch wakes up in a pine box.
In and out of rows with the profane.
In and out of the earth with the same name.
Mad screams, splinters and scratches.
The hot blood disease stops her cold clock.
Another one of her very bad patches.

2 group homes, all retarded.

I worked at two group homes for the mentally retarded. A brick ex-convent had 30 of them squeezed in, which was probably as many as the nuns it once sheltered, and it was built like a fortress, even with bars on its windows. In the chapel alcove where the Mary statue once stood was a big 70's wood cabinet TV with wood pillars.

Another group home had been a rich family's wooden mansion with a great front staircase, front hall and parlor, and a narrow servants' back staircase to the kitchen. The place squeezed in 34, but that included the converted two-story carriage house and its upstairs servant's quarters. Both homes were elaborately regulated government communes.

16

RETARDED SONNET IN 16 OVERBUDGETED LINES

some public service jobs pay quite a lot
some social service jobs pay like for a woman
I wish I knew all this way beforehand
I think my career choice was an undershot
not that I ever wanted a beach house or yacht
but to be part of the mix is not hard to understand
the retarded in their group homes are a privileged clan
not in their heads (where many lack diddly squat)
but a bed at night, bath, meds, snacks, and three meals a day
can be envious when you worry about bus fare, toothaches, and rent
as your boss reminds, "we're all only here to serve"
so when a labor union is created to help make them pay
the boss moans, "Oooh, all the budget has already been spent,
we increased your training, you're going to classes for stress."
The speaker that leads the hour class pockets two hundred dollars.
I must be so retarded to put up with such nerve.

17

GOVERNMENT MONEY

four to a room is better than two
two times the money from the state
and people who don't fit together
is a better scheme than half of that at all
if you get more money sent in then they ate

an exotic multiple diagnosis snafu, like
progressive mental illness with mild retardation
to make half the staff scurry to manage violence
and leave the doting Down syndrome angel unattended
again - four to a room makes twice the money as two

18

NAKED HALL RUN

The wide hall where 30 pass
just vacuumed by a roaring hunkered box
the new staff woman from Plymouth Church screaming
"Put your clothes on you naughty little heathens!"
She's not used to such a mass of shocking pink skin
still dripping wet from a safe luke-warm group shower
but then being shocked time and again becomes such work
and skin is only skin
and institutionalization
must have its compensations

(run naked part two)

though her clenched fist was
full of old chewed gum
and half licked candy
she deftly pulled the
fire alarm when she got mad
all the time
sometimes the fire truck
came and she loved that better
it's a good way to get mad
others might rock a
rocking chair to breaking
or slap their own face
to bleeding
violent noise is best

19

DEE

Dee Olson
saw ghosts in the chandelier
when I tripped it
and told her they were there

she already knew it

Dee Olson
loved stories about castles
and queens
in our pretend crystal ball
because I told her they were there

but she already knew it

and the night she died
I read her a stupid story
about a puppy being trained
she laughed
she related
she wasn’t very
potty trained

she knew it
and was finished
she didn't look like herself
in the coffin
she rested with orange makeup
and an airy bouffant, and
her painted lips were
finally wiped clean of all snacks

20

GROUP HOME

Retarded people aren't fun to make fun of.
They try too hard to navigate through
their egocentric loud day

Their families should always be made fun of.
Crippling guilty spoiling dumb
Janet never learned to walk stairs
(mom wouldn't let her fall)
Dot never learned to eat meals
(mom only had treats).
When Terra was admitted, she couldn't talk.
Mom used to do all that for her.
Terra just clapped her hands and baby babbled
but then, away from mom, her first blurt was,
(as I woke her up, from the couch, for her bus)
"Flerbyou! K-k-k-k-k-k-kunt!"

And that's a true story I gladly wrote up.
We have a fat log for daily comments like that.
Her mother was concerned by it
implying an abusive setup
a lack of coddling and the
bad influences of secularism.
I insisted, "Just
let your adult
daughter grow up!"

2006-08-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

Derailed in the Spook House
and Waiting

poems by Peter Joseph Swanson

Over the months there will be a wide variety of lengths, subjects, and styles, including Italian sonnets, villanelles, haikus, and even a canzona villanella - about Isis, Jesus, witches, Free Masons, group homes for the mentally retarded, being gay, drag queens, bad food, war, Israel, the birth of universes, disease, literalism, my growing up on a goat farm, film school, celebrity, liberals, right wing radio, punks, goths, darksiders, nerds, Jericho, Megiddo, Sodom, a very big earthquake at Disneyland, the city bus, and a rinky-dink spook house.

To see more derailed pictures - http://200poems.wordpress.com

To see my Joan Crawford art - http://petersjoanart.spaces.msn.com

part one - go all the way back to most intimate confessions of Isis.

1

ISIS AS CHILD AT RIVER

My star has fallen from the sky
the star that I'd chosen to pray to.
Has it done this just to terrify
and leave me wanting to die, too.
The sky is high and far away
the road is empty and long
will epoch help me to clarify
why life is dumb ditty dingdong.

Why care at all why flowers close
or why water is malevolence by night
when crocodiles eat the feathered piles
is flight only out of fright?

My thoughts have fallen from my head
I'm empty and barren and frigid.
I'd stand up but the wind is back
and its song is rather insipid.
A hope for a friend is far away.
The way back to the fort is too much.
I'll sleep on the banks next to such sharp teeth
just to see what fate says, no reason, inasmuch.

2

THE WEDDING PAGEANT OF ISIS AND OSIRIS

The Festival of Beer
is here and so we sup a tall cool cup
of golden golden light
elixir of the Gods
Golden light
Ra delight
drink enough to
take bender flight

The Festival of Love
is here and so we sup a tall cool cup
of leg spread
berry berry flame
elixir of the Gods
lurid flesh, lurid flame
drink to have no
mortal shame
Ra delight

The Festival of Ra
is here
stand up and glean
monotheism
opened his eye and gave us light
grow beer

The pageant spreads far
If you're sick by now
some things will come up
but your head will be lofty
your mind will want order
send all of your army
to block the federal border

If you grow sick of all the carnage
that's the way of war and plans
if you grow tired in midstream, too bad
a bird can sleep only after it lands

3

MOTHER OF RELIGION

In Egypt where the country is green at the banks of the cool
serene water
there was a time when wisdom was gleamed from an act of
messy manslaughter.
His arms and wrists, his knees and legs, all chopped to
separate portions.
His wife sewed them tight in a cohesive kite and flew him to
extraordinary fortunes.

Their city grew magic but churched-up to evil. So it all washed away in mundane upheaval. Prayers continue on to this present age, albeit, a cold statue is now your woman as sage.

4

IN THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

book-to-book a poem says simple
to read at all you can talk serpent nimble
politician you need to be O' Mother O' Religion
make citizens do things in up-and-down unison
where the city is better than the cannibals out west
to have a cold grain brew and helpless animal is best
all sinewy labor until the axe makes convulse
in the sand you can watch the river flood in blue pulse
divide the whole kingdom into manageable thirds
but it won't give you big or small ideas or words.

Poem-to-poem it makes a hot book crimple
and knot into angst and bad manners not simple
off the harbor there's sailors from distant north dots
the adriatic sea is too far for such soddy sots
and their languages may have been half written down
so we'll search every hull every chest into town
and hoard words as if they'll last us to forever
walled from battle and taxes and partisan weather.

5

VENICE, WITH BONES

sack me gobs of lilacs the next time you float down
Venice
the glass lasts longer but is it as musical and
rife
all beauty bleeds so fast you have to run mad to
replenish
or leave the steps bare of anything and let them be
stones
under wiggling reflections are gondola bones without
life
infection is there where the gloss kisses and slams
foam
prows swath the green film in slow circles to your
address
the apartments and inns are stacked like relocated
headstones

6

ROT STOPS

You're too fabulous, with all that you are, to merely rot.
The human animal lives in a fake world of it's own making.
Your life was too earnest to tell your story beyond earshot.
Do you sometimes wonder why everything looks heartbreaking?
Bricks, power lines, mercury and lead from chimneys are okay.
Breathe drink and eat some thick stuff, without too much pay.
It can only kill you and death is okay in religion.
Fly off to Pamperland like a quiet dove or crass pigeon.
You'll go on in glory, you're too self absorbed to just rot.
You're fabulous, until your heart stops, and then you forgot.

7

MADRIGAL FOR SUMMERLAND AND SCIENCE

tis the first day of summer the air's bright and clear
the dale's dotted with shoes, socks and trousers
but don't run to the edge, you'll see it's a box
at the school of hard knocks for all hours

you're dead, you died, off to the beyond
you went to the Summerland patch of black grasses
and there's no merry-go-round spinning in the field
for reincarnation passes

stand and wait, stand and wait, your turn
is over - kick out of your old shoes

The trees and dirt and grass you feel
is all you get with no appeal
as carbon shot you'll join the place
helping the smirk on Darwin's face
helping the mouse to grow like cat
redeem your life as aristocrat
while the sun bloats to fall apart
to fill space like a congested heart
it'll fry the earth as an afterthought
matter will sequester - ne'r again to be caught
the end of all time will come, you can wait
you've already left its arrow too straight
back through a baffling black hole conundrum
made sterile if reborn in bland equilibrium
grow cold! grow cold! like cosmic absolute nothing
no more fire and stones and dead bird stuffing
no more merry-go-round in the grass by the tree
it's a desolate cataract where all matter can flee

tis the first day of summer our heart's filled with mirth
the bovine lick babies in sunshine
that's the vista from Summerland looking to the west
don't look back, don't think thoughts saturnine

sit on the crabgrass and remember your manners
you have to smile at passing cars, and wave
there's only one coming by, only one by the hour
in the retention of things you'll have memories to save

8

OLIVE TREE CURSE

you bulldozed my fence, but my goat has legs so ran
and I can buy a new goat when you're out of my hair
you bulldozed my furniture, sentimental chests and bed
I watched them crunch under the house stones that day
the house was old, too, passed from father to father
the farmland has no papers, it's so old in time
you paid for a drawn-up deed anyway to be grabby
you bulldozed my olive trees, that was the last straw
a tree is our fruit that'll feed us tomorrow
the tree is the whole family in a thousand years time
olive trees grow for so long, they aren't just some crop
I now live in the compressing city cramming in a crunch
I share great stories of hate from others like me
we share to vow you dead with violence and terror
you will not take our oil and blood and be God blessed

9

RIBBONS

The two ribbons of light
came up out of the crack
in the nuclear plant,
lights in the thick dust
that were not self aware
but tried to mate.
Light is important.
Light is impotent.

The sky is like pink ribbons in yellow hair to set the spinning ride on fire - it isn't even there. In Summerland there are no portals back. Our reincarnation is all within our one disjoined life. Only one. And only for bipeds - begetting envy.

The feedlots tremble with lost greed. Their black lagoons fill with bones. The empty hulls of bugs will soon follow. The next ancestors of what is now tiny fungus will ask what is this scripture, these protracted ribbons of pictures left behind in tedious sequences showing monsters of the past on an odd brittle celluloid. The old era must have had inordinately patient creatures skilled in the most repetitive miniature illustration.

Paper clips were left on stairs. Ribbons spill out of small drawers. Many things were left in their boxes. Everything suddenly seemed so dropped. The eastern horizon is as lonely as the bottom of the arctic sea. Envy kills. They won't become extinct alone.

It's all disjointed and the story of my own life is many reincarnations that'll never meet. This isn't to be understood like only one book. Time is sideways in this house - ribbons up walls and across ceilings and floors. My story is mostly fallen bookshelves. That’s okay by me - the pieces were never meant to be read in one passing. They've fallen off their branches. The fingers fell apart. It's incoherent. It's disjointed. But this is common for my world, so I'm not sad. I'm just let down. Again.

What if there is no portal out of Summerland, only dirt, grass and trees, and we're all those things at the very same time? A ride spinning around would boldly imply reincarnation and that's only for this one disjointed life. I'll have to wait and see. In a few minutes. When I feel like I'm floating out of my body it's only a part of my oxygen starved brain misfiring. Being told different doesn't change that. Religion is belligerent. Hope is impotent. Reason only knows what it sees. Poetry is powerless against math. Poetry can only speak to like-minded deliberators. Math speaks to all ages and we were always so very bad at it.

10

ARTHURIAN LEGENDS

Merlin got Arthur high on a toadstool
Arthur flapped his druid words
and thought it was so vital.
Out of time in a war of new larger horses
he kissed the pool and the Lady of the Lake
kissed back, full of aspiration.
Hooray the witches and Goddesses that
woke up and caused dreaming.
Beltaine blossoms replace
yellow barley stalks and confusion.
Tulips and lilies are pagan
gossips of reincarnation.
Beltaine proves it when
everything grows again.
It has proof.