Issue 11

Summer 2002

Ben Passikoff

 

MAN OF LA MANCHA

String-skinny Don, boned forward of the rump
of U-backed Rosinante, rides the years
spoon-curved and fish-chinned in his rusting slump,
the twisted trees environing his fears :
black branches braided with the hanging dead.
On one horse side, the walking stomach sack
of Sancho, tragic-shoed in chuggy tread,

belly rhythmed to the lento clack
of geriatric gallop - while behind
the wiggle walk of reluctant Dulcinea,
her hilly haunches, floatingly designed
respect the distance of the horse's rear.
and horse surround the centuries,
crow-caw salutes the body-dendroned trees.

SHOWING NEXT WEEK

End does not happen.

Only for me, for you,
rivers unwater, skies
cease. anti-matter
matters.

Otherwise, the film
reels on, drunkenly
cranked by fingers of whom.

Erectly yet
we mate hands
temporally radiant,
eyes held by doings
where they point our heads.

The plot, as sure and sad
as Richard M. Nixon.

The flash of phallic
guitar in gandy dance.
The edge of weather.
The fact of Bach.

Even when once-eyes
are two periods
the gun keeps shooting.

Even after

THE END.

 

CHARLIE

Charlie, Charlie Chaplin,
woke, new ghost in naked morning -
in statue lap, his taut behind
an ache after night-cold stone.

Charlie, your shoes say go,
out-angled,full of feet and distance,
slap the sidewalk with old music.
Charlie, take your cane for a walk.

Charlie, chomp black spaghetti lace
against the manic kiss of winter snow,
house bending in bipolar seesaw,
systole and diastole in tilt.

Charlie, Charlie, with orchestral cane,
your heart is released in birds
hundred circling your hat amid tenements
precise in the light of dead cameras.

Charlie, our alternate father,
pour on us pardon, emit out
the sympathy to bend and lean
instead of standing cold and breaking.

Charlie, chilly in your urn
or other - new Charlie, null Charlie,
Charlie, chewed up in the memory of worms -
bones your silent canes.

Charlie, your skin, your pinkietwinkle,
is yet mesmeric on our landscape :
the sullen tundra of our sidewalks
periodic with ashcans.

 

© Ben Passikoff

 

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