Issue 14
Spring 2003
Ben Passikoff
EINSTEIN
Hair hushed,
he lay at last
in dimension.
Pebbles smote the box.
Mourners moaned
in sync and swayed.
to their own equations.
Safely stuffed: the various
multiplications of God:
geometry of the genome,
quarks in the dark.
His last thought lay hidden
in the worm-spaghettied box:
Intelligence is of the skeleton.
And the angry infinities
no longer were afraid.
OH, GOD WHO ISN'T,HELP US WHO ARE
Robert Friend
Mrs. Mother
told our faces:
emulate;
be like Ron or Laura -
nice, nice.Be in a chord,
chime right.
Wear a tie.
Pray for peace,
the Times in color,
and Carnegie Hall.Wall St. waited:
Standard & Poor,
Dow and dirty.
Alan Greenspan
ran for Pope.Equally mothered,
the East at last
scrutable, suitable,
once more lootable:
import, sexport,
the flying carpet
of dollar Bill.Global warning:
Nino, Nino -
leaves in tremolo,
weather weeping.
Oxygen interval:
over, over.Omega coming:
bony original
terminal landscape
archeological
vast defacation
of tailless
dinosaurs.
CANTO FRIO
Happy as a hombre
cucaracha dancing,
every toe a tango,
cueca, marinero
over all the Andes,
birdy panpipes tootling,
ganglias guitarring
cantos in the cold.
Child-high whores,
painted phiz and talons
bespangling all the midnights
of Lima, Rio, Aires
shifting shit collapsing
shanties on the hillside
shivering in rain.Michael Jordan cometh,
Kathy, Nike, Nafta:
globally begotten
samba swoop of vultures
needle-eyed for dollars -
fatal in the feces
testate of the generals.Tio Sam and Uncle Yen
endemic in the Andes,
Amazon, Temuco
copra, coca, hightops.Hidden miserere,
the hunched and the hatted
Indios digging darkness -
desaparecidos.