Issue 15, January/February 1998
Mike Barney - Two Poems

I

The woman on the Nicoderm commercial
was evilly baiting her companion:
“Come on, don’t you feel like cheating?
Have just one!”
The companion, heroine of the piece
smugly declined, her 
three day abstinence
completely unthreatened.

Back in reality
my own 976-day truce with the weed
shaky as the Middle-East peace process
I turn off the TV
and take a cold shower.

II

You and I know
The Kama Sutra
is an owner’s manual

The positions describe
required maintenance

So permit me
to dance
like a hypnotized chicken
while you peruse
the next-needed procedure.

III

Last New Year’s Eve
I saw Kali
dancing wildly with some
young stud-muffin.

She was groping him 
with her four hands--
he didn’t mind!
while Shiva sat in a corner 
watching, laughing, clapping
and counting out the minutes to midnight.
Looked like trouble brewing to me
so I lost consciousness
and faded from the scene.

IV

The wife says humans
have an obligation to die
after living out their time in full
of course.

The earth 
she says
can hold just so many fools
at any given time.

The husband hears
murmurs noncommittally
as husbands do
mentally begins to re-design 
his plans
for a
cryogenic storage chamber
to house one less.

V

Once
I spent an entire evening
alone with 
Christ
trying to persuade Him
to teach me
how to perform 
miracles.

He declined
politely
citing the 
Messiah’s Code Of Professional Conduct
and certain
Magician’s Union regulations.

We still had a really good time, though
sipping wine and 
chatting about some of His more
famous stunts, like
the loaves and fishes bit
(a real crowd-pleaser, that one)
the Lazarus gag, and
the whole
crucifixion/resurrection/ascension sequence
which He told me
He’d later taught to Houdini
personally.

When the evening was through
I found that He’d 
pulled a stunt on me--
disappearing all my tears
and turning my fears
to joy.

One hellava trick, that.

VI

Gaia, poet of the world
does not read her work aloud
but sings to herself
in the silence of creation. 

As if the grain
does not dread
being shred
in the combine

As if the maize
does not mourn
being torn
from the stalk

As if the pear
does not blanch
as the branch
lets it fall

As if the grape
does not lament
its flesh, rent
for wine.