Thomas Piekarski- Three Poems

 

                     In Praise of Hay                                   

                                                                                     

It’s true that at times the good die young,                 

but some like Lennon, King and Hendrix                  

live on, sealed in folklore that speaks

with every pulse of every bleeding heart.

 

And if there were a God that could actually

bring them back whole and in the flesh

they would be soft-spoken as are free fish

and have absolutely no need to be praised.

 

The Great Barrier Reef is disintegrating

and Glacier Park’s ice in alarming decline.

Meanwhile mantas--those majestic acrobats

that glide with glee through open waters--

 

are hooked, hauled in, and then unloaded

onto foreign docks, arranged in neat rows

on unforgiving concrete and clubbed until

dead. Their magnificent Stealth wings

 

whacked off with sharp machetes,

the cartilage sold by insidious profiteers

to Asians who anxiously await its arrival

to include in their beloved shark fin soup.

 

Half-naked Haitians support themselves

creating steel sculptures out of recycled

oil drums. They first fill the drums

with hay, then set it on fire to burn off

 

sludge that clings to walls of the barrels.

Once the steel is flattened they fashion

exotic aquatic figures—sea lions, orcas,

dolphins, starfish—together swimming

 

in synergistic asymmetry in an altogether

imagined pristine ocean. The Haitians

sing reggae as they toil, or loudly chant

traditional indigenous songs as they

 

bang mallets against heads of chisels,

the metallic clangor resounding throughout

an entire village that has weathered quake,

inundating  flood and unspeakable famine.

As a counterpoint to riches filched from

victims of cataclysm, the collective psyche

is stripped of its patina as well as motive

to grasp control of its progeny’s evolution.

 

 

 

                      Detective

 

He can only detect five of the twelve

documented dimensions, which means

omniscience has yet to take hold.

He must daily deal on the phone

with schizos he calls Nazis.

And now a new Muslim clique

plots an invasion across the border.

He noted what gruesomeness man

is able to inflict when he viewed

Jodie Foster grilling the cannibal

Anthony Hopkins in The Silence

of the Lambs. A minimal amount

of spam emails can be deleted

with one click of the mouse because

the internet is too congested.

Li Po on sabbatical, Lao Tse is fog.

He can only shinny up

a telephone pole so many times

until concluding he’s not

Coppola, Galileo, a monkey.

Quite a shame, he muses,

that imperiums like Rio and Barcelona

amass graffiti. As an addendum

Monet painted smoke inside

the Paris terminal, only one

to have attempted this. Obviously

Gandalf is nothing but a sly tale

like the Kraken. He felt

the vagabond didn’t have to get

so uptight when he mistook

his Australian accent for British. Oh

yes, Henry did pen the Dream Songs.

And he knew all along Pete Seeger

was a communist. So did I.

This much he can count on:

Julie resplendent in the foyer

of the snazzy moonlit oceanfront hotel

sings soothing jazz tunes

while waves hoodwink shaven sand.

 

 

                  

                   Lazarus

 

Of all the implausible notions

brought about by impotent potions

and convoluted mixed emotions

the least defined was his uncanny

defiance while facing death head on.

At the forefront stood stout fathers,

byproducts of volatile verse,

grandstanding. To the rear

his shadow gained on him

like a lightning stallion.

Not to be mocked

he tallyhoed

that he might hail new space,

any other than that which

was inhabited, intrepid beast

unscathed by revisionist voyages.

Mucky turbulence a caveat:

he’d already bought and sold

a king’s ransom of hollow souls

and was left for dead.

As a result he pranced about,

dug untapped earth,

unassailable, administering

admonishment upon

creatures warranted

unworthy of redemption.



Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry and interviews have appeared in Nimrod, Portland Review, Kestrel, Cream City Review, Poetry Salzburg, Boston Poetry Magazine, Gertrude, The Bacon Review, and many others.  He has published a travel guide, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems. He lives in Marina, California.