a land without caves.

I felt betrayed when the Jehovah's Witnesses left;

behind in their little aggressive hats. No way in hell

did Degas draw his spirits  of poesia

in the glow of French ballet dancers.

No way in hell can they know the seat of

feelings, of passions like a pink slipper

that guides dominion and death.

Not on the East side where everything

happens inwardly. Where richness and psychosomatic

ramblings are just a food stamp away.

The Reiki woman has already

pronounced my energy fields safe to pas thru.

The insufficiency of being naked/

trying to get a slippery breast into my

mouth in a Corvair just big enough for rest.

I can see the headlines now:

LOCAL BOY TAKES UP WRITING POETRY AS A HOBBY

AND THE WORLD IS SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION.

At the last drive-in theater

I imagined I owned the butters shadow,

the dim light that sets the organs off

like a sun needing art to correspond.

Funk and heat and a bleeding toe

strands a kiss in mid air. It's gonna

happen, then it does and the flailing rings

exactly to the rule that changes seasons.

Now your dad still drinks his Crown Royal

while I try to regrow my hair. I just

noticed he was missing a finger, chopped

off during his midnight-shift at the meat

packing plant. Said he was at the "Bulge"

during the time when there were no tactical

Negroes in fixed uniforms. Just the orderly,

methodical ones who drove trucks and restored 

supplies for the front lines. But

I love his daughter out loud; she with

the giant b***s and the impromptu sex.

And he, with all those missing parts.

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

I read your other comments and no, I don't know what to make of it either. I did read it a few times, not as part of a critical autopsy, but because it was fun. Full marks to any poem that begins with a Jehovah's Witness' visit. I wait on the front porch Sundays with cigarettes and beer and troll the street for the Witness'. Witness bait, I am. Chum. Sundays are a fun day.

Great finish by the way. Thank you once again.

[Beccy]

When you find that land without caves, let me know. I'll bring a notebook and pen, and of course, never answer to an intrusive knock on the door.

The reference to Degas is sublime.

Beccy.

[Angad Waraich]

Hey!
Very interesting poetry.
Enjoyed it but couldn't make much of it.
But its great break from all the deep life reflective poems.
Thank you for sharing!

[W.k.kortas]

The wise and pithy Mr. Hart has certainly gotten onto soemthing with the notion of machine-gun fire, but I suspect it is laid down in a more precise pattern than we might suspect, proceeding nicely from the orederly Jehovah's Witnesses, black and white in every aspect of their nicely compartmentalized lives, to the wonderfulness of "impromptu sex", spinning from order to disorder and back again like Yeats' mad gyres. I'm not a big fan of Yeats, myself, or at least not his later stuff, partly because he had pretty much given up on the common run of humanity by then, where you embrace it, too few digits and too much tit and all.

[writing mojo]

you can always shed light on the most metaphysical things and call it dreaming in metaphors, having not a lot of words starting with the letter Z saddens me..because I think the word zave instead of save or any other S word at that matter would have more an impact on my zubconscious...this one is zuper...there i did it..zee where it goes..excellent piece

[Marie Anzalone]

something I saw the other day made me truly laugh out loud; it was the picture of a dog, with the caption, "I believe in the power of barking. Every day for 7 years I have barked at the mailman, and he has not yet come in and slaughtered my family. Yes, I believe in the power of barking."

We all need someone to love us out loud, even those of us too jaded to remember why or too prudish to think that th eworld of flesh applies to us, too. Perhaps them, most of all.

and then we come to this item of faith- that careful company, that two-way personal intimate dialogue forged one anger, heartbreak, wonder, and deception at a time; that relationship nurtured with whiskey and cheap and great sex and trips to walk in the woods and contemplating cows in wells and who knows what else- that some earnest idiot in a stupid hat thinks he can rewrite for us in 5 minutes. They look down on us for beng intelligent, you know. Pray for our souls. Isn't that just the most dear thing that you ever heard?

There is a group of indigenous people, I believe in Brazil, who send their holy people to live the entire first half of their life sealed away in caves, away form sunlight, knowledge, or normal social interaction. They claim that it is necessary in order to save the rest of the word from destruction, that it restores a balance of power. Who knows? maybe they are onto something, Whether I owe continued existence to them, r to you as a hobby poet, or to the JW's who earnestly belive their way is right, or to the Mormons posthumously converting Jews to their religion- or to the medical marvels of vaccines and antibiotics, I am thnakful to share breath and space in this world with you.

[h d e rushin]

I took their Watchtower out of courtesy not commitment. As far as changing roles is concerned,
I would love a woman's fire in all matters of disapproval....dana

[Tree]

You roll out the scenes like a Tarantino movie, D, my dad too, and his Crown Royal. This was a fascinating little piece that played in my head like the aforementioned. Anyway, your ending was sublime, perfect, ––grotesque, but perfect. And beautiful.

Diego

[Mark]

I like it. It's almost got a "beat" style , introspective fusion, with an edge, type of thing going on.

Mark

[Ed Hart]

like machine gun fire scattering lethality