Without Chronology

Five Short Poems after Chapter 27

I

The Audience Thinks You're Inferior in Every Way (or, Finally Eating with Lindsay Lohan the Beatles Fan)

I love when he
raises his arms
from the table,
and in chirps he says:
"why don't we just
leave right now, just
get up and go some place?"

I love this mantra,
because it may
or may not
happen,
and if it doesn't,
well then, where
did it come from
to begin with?

II

A Lady for the Evening

The woman
in the green dress
nothing more than
a foreign hawk
and a creature of bone--
she hurries away,
degraded;
even her good looks
couldn't win his heart.

The generic hotel radio
sits in its disconsolate
corner, murmurs
the only offering in
the aftermath.

III

Ironically You Freak People Out Even Though You Keep Saying You Have to be Careful in New York

After seeing John
for the first time,
the only thing
to think about
is the picture
that was taken
of seeing John
for the first time.

Standing with a
photographer
is better than
standing with the
splintered self
while waiting
for John's return
right after he's left.

IV

Lindsay Lohan (Long Gone)

There are perhaps reasons
that these voices ring in one
ear and not the other, but we
really just don't know why,
and we also don't know why
all these pieces crack so well
together when symbolic
females leave the scene.

V

Mark David Chaplain's Void of Collage

How fast does a Ferris Wheel fly?
How far do these avenues extend?
When does the field of rye burn?

Let the others, as delusional, frighten.
Let the dark spaces bind and blind.
Let the children be the choir of death.

Holden Caufield wound up a new clock,
mounting his own strength to fight,
to demolish love's towers until the very end.