Brian Le Lay- Three Poems

All the Good Health in the World

When we cored the globe like an apple
(Me with my semantics
You with your stupidity)
I wished you (not in so many words)
all the good health
in the world

My eyes rusted over,
My toenails turned the black of a penny

My lungs collapsed like carnival tents
on the foot-flattened grass of a vacant churchyard,
having given you all the good health
        in the world

I became a crumpled dollar bill,
The doctor fixed me up
a synthetic lung from the stray hair
you left hanging from the ceiling

    Real nice, real nice,
My relatives from Pennsylvania say
over au gratin potatoes, glass gravy boats,
Salt and pepper shakers in the shape
of buildings that are long gone.

"So will you ever graduate from Easy Street?"

There are many lost shoes that swing from powerlines,
Hanging mist and flashing lights between us,

But at least you are far

and that is enough.



Gerrymandering

Black
And white
Brown and blonde

The shades
And coarseness
Of skin
And hair

The stars in Williamsburg Brooklyn
Versus the stars
in Abingdon Virginia at midnight

Man and woman
Especially
Man and woman

The disparities keep us
Pushing and pulling
For progress

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe
On East 3rd and the Grand
Old Opry in Nashville

Samuel Beckett
And Glenn Beck
On the same shelf

Nature has played
A terrible trick
On us all



My Archimedean Restlessness

I've abandoned literature altogether
    and become a mathematician
I wake up in the middle of the night, naked,
stubbing my toe on an end-table
    while looking for a piece of paper

Next day, at lunch with my friends, I say,
"Sorry I'm late, was awake all night.
Got an idea for the most badass equation ever."



Brian Le Lay is the editor of Electric Windmill Press. He wrote the books Don’t Bury Me in New Jersey (Electric Windmill Books), Please Make an Internet Catchphrase Out of the Headline Written to Report My Death (forthcoming, Piggybank Bandit Books, 2011) and Our Brick-and-Mortar Basement Apartment America (Piggybank Bandit Books, 2012). His poems have most recently appeared in The Prism Review, The Montucky Review, and BoySlut.