The Cities: Three Poems

The Cities

1.

Patagonia shines like a perfect martini. Descending, the belletrists discover Mnium Hornum, an arctic moss that poisons penguins but renders sheep immortal. Then back to Santiago. Garnish the sack of the city with olive and orange, another conflict for the ages.

2.

I sing a philippic left of the regime. What do I want with fingernails? A hummingbird’s dialect dies every second, while other airbornes watch their wings. Private water rights parch the city, with Bellavista just looking for some ice.

3.

An umbilical injection, sand in the stomach, sand in the veins, in the nostrils. Ignoring the statistics, we take in an imperial musical in the key of E.

Games

1.

In this universe, cold’s not the default between galaxies. Everything’s heat. At court, dukes do duchesses quietly, trying to save sweat. Idleness means more machinery. Grease never congeals, and saliva is at a premium.

2.

Once a generation the unperformable play is performed. A thousand on the stage, which allows for an audience of only fifty. They are cats and dogs, with the occasional elephant thrown in. Nobody likes donkeys much.

3.

Coming back to the house, we see Grendel storming through the meadhall. The epic chant begins. The children lie about crying, half eaten and broken.



Death

1.

But then we take balloons up the map and end up there. Below that we’re shocked by the lake, emptying our eyeballs into the deep end. Impossible to get control of a mind like that.

2.

The slanted sound scrapes our ears, makes the grain of the cut audible. What weather denotes our senses we can’t detect. Next thundershowers, rain off the coast of middle Arabia. The first verse screams of seagulls, the next of wild clerics. We’re ready to drill now.

3.

I walked into a bar in Anchorage, passing through a medical detector, and launched into my jejune jeremiad on the debased salt flats that consume people. I hope there are fewer liars in Seward. Next to the great beast, you’re drinking a bear-distilled vodka that’s colored with the blood of joy.

Why Ishmael's Dog?

Ishmael didn't have a dog.

Write to me at philhop1 [at] yahoo [dot] com if you want an explanation of the name.