Leeroy Berlin- Two Poems

chevy minotaurs wander the desert

childhood dreams wither with age

where they play

where adults sit in the somnolent shade

and families gather in resentment round coolers filled with beer.

twisting paths of liquid stone bake in the untended sun

cement poles and alien trees

reach for siblings across the road,

and shelter the lost from feeling.

endless cinderblocks, stacked and mortared walls

hide

foundations

wide second-story windows gouged from pastel boxes

peer out at traffic and

a thousand permutated castles

defended by suburban moats

under chain and lock

peer out over automated progression

through a maze with no egress but collision

and no ingress but a kind of death.

rumplestiltskin

calling a rose a gun makes it something

else

women are always surprised when I say their names

i'm not sure if it's the rarity

or the acknowledgment

that they exist

i’ve screwed a lot of ‘hey you’s

on sofas

on twin beds

on the floor of a laundromat.

different faces

and voices

smiles and cries

but always just

'hey you.'

knowing a name has never given me power

you can’t control something that way

but 'hey you' is a slave to my desires

and 'hey you'

can't hurt me the way ... can.



bio:  Leeroy Berlin was swept out to sea in an unseasonal typhoon.  Somehow he washed ashore back in LaLaland, and is waiting for the day he can afford airfare back to paradise.  Read more of his poetry at leeroyberlin.com