Alan Britt- Three Poems

SAME OLD, SAME OLD

From the caves of Lascaux

to a Lantana Beach, Florida-room,

fat flies cling to salty gingham curtains.

Opaque claws from a feral priest

or the governor of a slave state

overseeing plantations, herding cotton angels

with heat lightning breasts of 13, 14 or 15 years.

The chimneys of southern mansions

coughing pestilence, helicopter insects

migrating corner to corporate corner,

according to the magic pipe.

Discipline . . . . . . . . . rape of culture,

homogenization of one solitary human

to another.

Evolution as it stands today

gives me a fucking headache.

Tomorrow, dementia, that arcane disease,

sometimes known as monetary transfiguration

(from the 13 ruling families to you and me)

but otherwise known as he who has possession

of the bomb.

Follow the bomb,

& you’ll find the money.

BITCH

(For Charlie Watts)

Who knows what these poems might do;

they’re out there attacking the Diaspora

like a sponge on a freckled Formica counter

licking the coffeemaker’s chinchilla feet

disguised as a bitch in heat.

Who knows what the bitch might do?

Who knows?

Last I heard that bitch electrocuted her old

man for loitering the local Starbucks.

Meanwhile, hunkered low, in a flickering 

dank & dark Maryland basement, Gary’s

Terps snatch another one from Duke!

FART FOR ART’S SAKE

We’re the only two folks in the room

who know that a fart machine is tucked

beneath the cushions where a dozen people

converse about Italian soccer,

how Wallston’s Objective Correlative differs from Eliot’s,

why Goya was Lorca’s favorite,

or how a rising and falling spondee burps

one bubble of mud from its dry riverbed.

Then comes the inevitable lull in conversation,

allowing each a full three seconds

to collect his or her thoughts.

That’s when the farts erupt,

near the far end of the couch,

next to a table with an imitation Tiffany dragonfly lamp.

That’s when three females abruptly excuse themselves

and head for the kitchen.

On their way out they ask,

What’re you two laughing so damn hard about?

Pregnant pause precedes another explosion

below said couch,

already under suspicion.

Heads in unison rotate toward the CEO

of Primordial Realism himself,

dozing comfortably at 9:23 PM.

Prefering to "lean and loafe at [his] ease," Alan Britt is troubled by the corruption and ambivalence that permeates the Great Experiment, so politically speaking he has started the Commonsense Party, which ironically to some sounds radical. He believes the US should stop invading other countries to relieve them of their natural resources including tin, copper, bananas, diamonds and oil, that it’s time to eliminate corporate entitlements and reduce military spending in order to properly educate its citizenry, thereby reducing crime and strengthening the populace in the manner that Jefferson envisioned. He is quite fond of animals both wild and domestic and supports prosecuting animal abusers. As a member of PETA, he is disgusted by factory farming and decorative fur.