Issue 15, January/February 1998
Perry Thompson - Two Poems

She wears clothes that come from stores.
Her shoes are made of reptiles.
She drives a car that is low and fast.
Her shirt is unbuttoned one button too low.

Our bed is like a table where sweet
fruits and drinks wait.  
We always return there from days
that stumble with unimportance.

Sometimes I guide the liquid sleep.
Lucid dreams, you said.  
Help me with your telepathy.

The school bus floats above the school.
It is filled with children about to die.
Their parents and teachers cannot save them.
The mayor and fire chief stand helpless too.

Full and beautiful the ripe moon
spills its darkness on the werewolf.
She struts thru woods in lace looking
to open the perfect ripe throat.

Mama Satan leans thinly on the corner.
She is young as a pirate and lovely
as a gangster.  Her long fingers (which
she carries in her pockets) turn your 
life around.  Feel Her in your bones?
In the deeper bones of your soul?

One with the scenery now are you,
part of the railways, bus
stations and curling
blacktops.  Billboard 
signs take your sanity away.
Your hands are dirty, clothes too.
No more cities.
Friends will write you a handbook
on crickets.  You need to know them.
Out here, they're all you have.

You read because reading is good.
Your hands think of silk gloves
and your body dreams of carriages.
You like the pouring rain.
Your eyes are the colour of avenues or pistols.

He shuffles famished streets in the rain.
He finds a lady cold as the lamp posts.
He tells her some of his lies.
He knows they need their
hands for the ceremony
and some solid gold Top 40 lullibies. 
 
Here is your list of things to do today -- 

 1.   The cool linen smoke on your fever.
 2.   Because they wear gloves they think they leave no traces.
 3.   She will resort to her cruelest welcome, bringing the scalpel
      dialogues.
 4.   His raw fingerprints are on your life and kisses full of wine
      and opium.
 5.   Insects scuttle back and forth thru the city like handwriting.
 6.   Change your mind about love using no anesthetic.  
 7.   Risk it fiercely as a child does!
 8.   Machinehood!
 9.   Admirer of Nightmares!
10.  The sting of summer is cooled in the tides.

Now go. 
Tell  these things to the monkey in the street.

Were the children also wicked,
children born in Sodom and Gomorrah

who shrieked at the touch
of the Jealous God?

I must know this, boys and girls --
did you ever dream a dream,

like metal in a furnace,
more wicked than the One who

turned your arms and legs to flame?