Six Poems || A. P. Lewis

​1. The moving image
 
Spent the weekend sick from pink sweetness: tin-eared. They throw me on a mattress
and take away the brushes. I would no longer portray flowers. There is movement of television.  vegetative and envious.
 
Possessing yet not owning, when we’re working it
takes time. The old gods never died but moved to hollywood where they recline in mansions aping old images of themselves without violence.  


2. Mystic Shape of God-head
“If a sufficient amount of pain is applied at the proper intervals to the proper locale,
  it will block the natural onset of dreaming”
 
“Darlene, come quick, grab the fire extinguisher-- not the grease one!
The Phoenix is fixin’ to rise from the embers again.”
 
By the time I get to Phoenix
she’ll be a polymerase chain reaction quaking,
or acquire trichomonas from lesser Isis.
 
-Another fine example of Tourette’s
(Another fine mess you’ve gotten us in.)
N-n-n-nickels, dimes and quarters,
The serpent bites his own tail (tale).
 
Do you picture him in a circle and green?
A liaison of Set, a psychopomp,
The Snake Man devours the Chicken Man of New Orleans,
Beat him 4 straight sets of poker:
King High,
pair of 4’s
& a full house,
 
He leaves town with a suitcase & a trunk
The only time he’s satisfied s when he’s
all drunk.
 
 
Did you watch his tongue flicker;
Hear his hsssssssssssssssss?
Another imaginary television commercial for the gnosis,
not unlike the red cough syrup our parents poured into silver spoons,
taken from the silverware door that jangles when opened as we sit in tall wooden chairs (just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.)
 
-Perhaps you’d care for a refreshing zen beverage instead?
Is this the mystic shape of god-head?
a taste of tangerine ice cream on the tips of our tongues,
flavored artificially and naturally,
--or a fading jingle from a Mr. Frostee passing by…
 
 
3. Square Dancin’

Rounding the corner on 15th
micro-leopard print
Waltz from the mouth
of a lion fountain,
Tried painting you there,
but sketched only pigeons
filled with vagabond’s pretzel crumbs
from yesterday’s cart
-then flew away.
 
Heading south is for Wa-Wa’s
nifty-fifties black and white shakes.
 
Gleaming red lawn balls
 
by the roadside cars at night
 
 
Waltzing away from the square-
 
leaving a glimpses on the pavement;
 
Country music without the twang.
 
 
4. Restless Jitters/ Random Thought/ Louis Kahn/ Blues
 
Got  dem restless jitters
 
once
 
again
 
 
It’s three am
 
-Won’t go away.
 
“Will they drop one on Manhattan…again!?”
 
“I Don’t know, man.”
 
--told you once,
won’t say it
 again
 
 
sliding into Penn Station
now
 1100 am
`                                   to meet an old friend
                                               
                                                the yellow’d 70s
                                                functional rotunda
                                                hasn’t gotten
                                                much prettier.
                                               
                                                         * * * *
                                               
 
                                                Louis Kahn
                                                diedon the public toilet
                                     here,
                                                 in- between two wives.
                                               
an he didn’t even get to re-make it
 as the capital
                                                of Bangladesh.
 

5. Solitary Confinement Choir
 
At night
from our cells
beneath
the  bolted
phosphorescent
we could hear
the screams and yells
from solitary confinement;
on the other side of the wall.
 
from
their darkened individual cells
the prisoners would howl
and rattle the bars
 and call out,
in unison.
 
The cacophonous choir
was strictly for show,
as the prisoners
indelibly
knew
this was County
so their detention
was short
and
they would again
return to the general population
of other male prisoners.
 
This kind of show,
was Quite The Show.
 
 
6.Mis(e) En Scène
 
A strip-mall flies past the train window:
 
“Mr. Conductor stop the train- I need shampoo!”
 
But the lonesome whistle blew
 
when I next look up- thru construction & time zones,
 
my scalp itches
 
a light-bulb goes of over-head:
 
“I used to live there.”