June 26, 2009

I need you.



I.

Place an order for the tallest champagne fountain imaginable,
I want Pompadour coupes balanced higher than the ceiling.
A night at the science center, among dinosaur fossils humongous & fragile,
We want to throw a party fit for mutants, a gala glamorous with real feeling.
There's so much to celebrate, sparkling swampy like the bijou,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Won't you consider my poetic gems? Melt, melt,
This frozen liver, come down into the Vision Mine,
Down where we wait for our investments to return: magical cards waiting to be dealt,
Crystals for the convention & centuries-old underground wine,
A few dead canaries & a stubbed pinky toe,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Oh, there's such anger at this party, the chef exploding
Into an Oscar-nominated lightshow: indigo & uncleaned latrines,
This party's like a brown dwarf with its bronze-gilting corroding,
I miss having a lady-friend where you could read her fortune on her breasts' blue veins.
Like a dead newspaper, lost the possibility to read you,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Nazi gold, Nazi gold! I'm in my bathtub waiting to be born,
Fifty dollars worth, compared to the trials of the supermanly,
I admit that I am not supermanly. This is not the forum
Nor with casual contemptuous ease & true certainty,
Who will leave you on the freeway like a sloppy rotting poo,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Meet me at the crossroads of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue
And deep space, look into the Vision Mine & look at Orestes,
See the stars getting blurrier - promises of ten time ten times today's revenue,
Ponzi Bear scheming out of hibernation, now hidden like walrus testes,
Hidden like creosote, like feeding me feed you,
You don't realize how much I need you.

This is nothing fancy - deeper than innocence but still nothing fancy,
Deeper than nonsense but less artsy-pantsy than karate,
Far less profound than the adolescent brides at the compound, skilled in fruit prophecy & fructomancy,
More or less romance than the fruit-fly's dance, not fancy nor a very special dichotomy,
Get the party started & send shirley temples to the kids' party, too,
You don't realize how much I need you.



II.

Having seen their reflections, let my people go on & on & on,
Vituperations aside, we anticipate an above-average get-together,
And unnoticed resurrections, Jenny departing with the next cannon,
Above the clouds, outrageously red & above the weather,
You loved me whenever I wore the newest decade's bad hairdo,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Won't you consider my poetic gems? Let down
Your satan-stained trousers. Consider these carousers,
Consider their railroad gin: The king of catering, his fleshpot crown,
And his Amuse-Bouche Princess, imprisoned inside their netscape browsers.
Julius "I Like Ike" Caesar will sing for you his campaign credo,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Find us in this redwood forest with its briers & thorns, all-males,
Handsome little escorts, their Republican ex-congressmen forestfowl,
They're so bitchy about the punctuality of their cocktails.
And they dance & chant a copyrighted barbershop hymnody around a giant pagan owl:
Waked by strange cries of the dogosaur towards dawn, startling like cocky-doody-doo,
You don't realize how much I need you.

After their lost election, they quickly retreat to their retreat,
Into the earth in search of quartz contentment,
Having been embarrassed all over by scandal, comes a volcan fatigue.
What the sunchokes meant, never know what the other roots fomenting meant,
What the tunnel went, you don't know why this generation won't heed you,
You don't realize how much I need you.

The same archvillain we thought we had destroyed,
The same Artie Wongay, a racist stereotype with the same monologues,
Rises again from the undermine, new laser-missiles deployed,
New raisins in your healthy cereal, the same new crocogogues:
Again the mutants pull together, rescued the planet & freed you,
You don't realize how much I need you.

Now there's reasons to celebrate, space for a holiday.
I want mimosas in coupes for every true citizen.
The circus has set free their elephants & returned from faraway,
The Vision Mine is clogged up & left to be forgotten:
Some day its portals will be as incontinent as the imaginary galaxy our villain has fleed to,
You don't realize how much I need you.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

great poem, your best?

S. Sandrigon said...

Thank you! The artwork for this poem by Olaf Mary.

Anonymous said...

bravo, James. really wonderful stuff. I didn't want it to end. also, ljowg, lookin' good, buddy.