Flight of Ideas
Poems by Robert T. Jeschonek
*****
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright © 2012 by Robert T. Jeschonek
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*****
The Last Night of the Last Bokey-Bokey on Earth
Hindquarters glowing dim red in the darkness, you perch on the sleeping man's big toe,
Holding on with your barbed black feet, six eyes gaping like pimento-stuffed olives
'round your pink-glowing knot of a head.
You shiver like a violin string in time with his breathing, so excited you can barely control yourself,
Yet melancholy, for this will be the last time your kind merges with humanity,
With a man,
For you are bzzeep zeep you are the last of the Bokey-Bokeys.
Your name meaning savior
Your name meaning conscience
Your name meaning beauty
Your name meaning hope.
As you shinny up his leg, through the forest of his leg-hair,
You buzzwhistle a traditional song, a mating song that's been with your people always,
Something about crawling through gates, oozing up a tunnel
Burrowing into a mound, piercing clay with roots like needles,
Only the gates are teeth, the tunnel's a windpipe,
Bzzeep zeep the mound's a brain.
Once, men begged your kind to to visit them in the night, they made burnt offerings and spoke through shamans and priests who knew the chants and dances it took to draw you from hiding. They cheered and shook rattles as you shinnied up sweat-soaked backbones by firelight, buzzwhistling your litany of promises. Sparks of static flickering from your million-fold cilia, wings glittering like fresh-dipped parafin, pincers clacking front and back as did the pincers of your forebears, all the countless googolplexes of them in all the nonillions of centuries. Gods you were then, your methods unchanged from the first trilobite, first coelacanth, first dinosaur, first rodent. Names unchanged from the grunts of the first amphibian squatting in the mud, buh-kee...buh-kee...Bokey...Bokey...first gods of the creatures of the Earth, bzzeep zeep and now this, and now you.
If he woke, he would fling you across the room or crush you with the flat of his hand,
So pick your steps carefully through the thicket of his belly and chest.
Easy now, pry his lips open and slip past the teeth,
Giving off just enough anesthetic salve from the glands between your toes to numb the tongue and throat.
Once inside, you will make him dream as in days of old,
The bull bowing its head before him,
The eagle carrying him aloft, the sphinx with his features.
This is how all gods bred prophets at one time bzzeep zeep by entering
And entwining with the animal form.
Just because man has forgotten the Bokey-Bokey doesn't mean the Bokey-Bokey
Has forgotten man.
The man chuckles softly in his sleep as you claw your way into his brain,
Swallowing nuggets of salty gray pudding as your sacrament, the host of your host.
By morning, he will be changed beyond recognition inside,
Become pilgrim of an ancient nameless faith, disciple of a god both real and in his head
Who will give to him the greatest gift for one last time, the inspiration
For the leap of intuition and compassion, bzzeep zeep geometric evolution
Fit to change a world as a thrown bucket of paint changes a painting
And you shall curl up and wait in your burrow, Bokey-Bokey,
For the bullet that pierces your hideaway as one always does,
The god-killing bullet that stops the leap forward
And you, the last Bokey-Bokey, squirm and sigh one last time,
Receding like the final whir of summer's last katydid, unseen in the shadows,
A candleflame snuffed by the wind, a god of gods past,
Sinking fast,
Your name meaning barren
Your name meaning conscienceless
Your name meaning unbecoming
Your name meaning hopeless.
*****
What Was Under the Refrigerator Magnet Stuck to the Death Ray Generator
Dear Doctor Stonehenge,
Sorry about scalping you
inadvertently
with my laser vision,
but I couldn’t let you put on your
Thinking Cap
and possibly defeat me.
As for the Death Ray,
why not point it at someone
we all hate the next time?
People would pay you more
to take lives
than save lives
You idiot.
But you didn’t hear that from me.
Now about the baboonapotamus:
Wouldn’t a crocotiger
or piranhahawk
make more sense?
Or a couple of codependent
manic-depressive
passive-aggressives
crossed with vampire bats?
But that’s just my opinion.
Now listen:
We both know I’m a righteous crusader,
Red, white, and blue
from my shades to my jock strap,
but times are changing
and to tell you the truth
the country’s headed more in your direction
than mine.
Plus which,
ever since we broke up,
I’ve been thinking
you have a point,
and maybe if I’d compromised a little,
taken an interest in your work,
like instead of stopping your plan
to hire more illegal immigrants as henchmen,
what if I’d, say,
wiped out the rain forest with my nuclear piss
or carved Satan on Mount Rushmore?
I think we could have had
a different cliffhanger ending,
one without your new sidekick Contempto,
who by the way I’m sorry about killing
in the line of duty
with my hyper-sneeze and gun-shooting powers
in the line of duty.
So anyway,
maybe we can team up sometime,
but only if you get your act together,
and no more lameass weapons
like the Low Self-Esteem Ray
or the Incontinence Flea
and no theme crimes based on nursery rhymes
or silent movies.
And no, for the record,
this has nothing to do with my trying to dominate
the relationship
(which there isn’t one, anyway,
as we both know)
or what happened last November
on the cruise ship you sank
single-handedly.
But let’s not beat a dead horse.
What matters is,
I’ve seen the light of evil
so to speak
and we’re both on the same side at last.
With my brawn
and your brains
(all three of them)
nothing can stop us.
(And just imagine how great the sex would be,
not that there would be any
because of course there’s no
“us”
and I swear to Hitler and Jack the Ripper
I’m totally only in it for the evil.)
*****
Whisperin' Jim
Whisperin’ Jim came by today, said he wanted to play him some bill-yards. Instead, we ended up talkin about the brevity and tragedy of existence over this here bottle a tequila, now empty. For some reason, Jim had it in his consarned head pod that life’s a hopeless dogpile, and the best we can hope for is ta duck the worst of the crapstorm. Bein a member of the Order of Quasi-Approximates, I hold to the belief that life is more or less a kind of almost thing. Neither here nor there, fish nor fowl, boots nor beer. Everythin’s half-formed, half-realized, half-nuts; take a look around ya and tell me ya don’t agree. And maybe we’ll experience the other half someday, and all this garbage’ll make sense or at least it’ll be less nonsensical. We might all be surprised.
After our talk, Whisperin’ Jim spread open his chest cavity and out popped Darnell, this li’l lifeboy that keeps ol’ Jim’s organs tickin and ticklin. Darnell said in his garglin kinda voice that he agreed with me, there had to be more to it all. Lookin around at the beet red wiry roots of the ingrown trees, I said you got that right, buddy. Maybe the other half of our reality has blue ingrown trees steada red. Maybe the squirrelsquitos got a neon green proboscis stead of a neon orange one. And then there’s our one emotion, rishiga, the feeling of solidity; maybe that’s a feeling of intangibility in the other half a the univerge.
So tonight, I been thinkin. What if that other half a reality exists and is aware of us? What if even now, as I write this in my own exotic fluids, someone else on the other side a the curtain’s extrudin a very different side of the story on their piezo-electric hardshells? What would they think a all this boozin Whisperin’ Jim an I do every interval with Darnell and his own inner chestpup Queeg? Would they unnerstand what we been through these past seven awarenesses, or would they turn away an say how inappropriately cartilaginous our gag reflexes have comported their attitude/lyricism modules? And what about the world bubbles fizzing always around us, rising from the electric yellow up-ground and sailing downward, then popping with the sweet shrill squeals of released pressure. Each planet swarming with barely visible bug-specks in ant farm formation, all bursting into the ether when the razor breeze slices through their watery, craggy globelands, spraying them into eternity as we sing the ancient “Wish upon a bursting bubble” song. Maybe, in that other half a reality, they sing the same song, but in reverse. Wouldn’t that be somethin to hear, Whisperin’ Jim? Wouldn't it?
*****
Sister
I used to think the Holy Spirit scratched daily at my door
Furred in gray and black and mottle,
Winding around my legs and singing for supper.
Now I know that at best, the Spirit is a feckless hummingbird,
Darting in and out of my life on whirring emerald wings,
Been and gone before I finish a blink.
I felt like Saint Francis of the cats
But my Sisters bitched about the smell and filth and one day
My strays stopped coming.
I still kneel in the rose marble chapel
Wearing the gleaming silver band of Christ my bridegroom,
Silver as the hair beneath my habit,
On my wedding ring finger.
But the one thing my Sisters cannot command is my prayers,
And I confess,
I do not always pray good things for them.
From my window, I see the very graveyard where I will rot but
I think I am rotten already.
*****
Night School
Little kids
playing at sin
break rules shuck
laws kick
curfews go
wild under young moons.
They flow down alleys and black streets
like whiskey,
blood like liquor,
burning and dizzy.
They explode in Chevys out
tailpipes strained
mufflers and Yamahas
that roar their heart
beats.
They blaze neon paths
through schoolnights and
fast food, beer
cans and back
seats, whispers.
They stalk the shadows
and storm through
smoke, laughing
loud, spitting
brown, kissing
lips and bottles.
They stand tall, strut
cocky, mark
territory with broken glass
and shiny tin tabs.
They shake fists, curse
hotly, gun
engines, sneer savvy.
And in bottles and smoke,
through beer and rage,
they hide,
take a stand
against scary dawns,
dicey futures.
They flicker through midnights
like cigarette ashes,
wild and bright
and aimless,
finding out.
*****
Prayer Against Children
The first time you realize
Five fourteen-year-olds
Acting in concert
Can kill you
Five twelve-year-olds
Ten-year-olds
Eight-year-olds
Ten five-year-olds
Not even with guns or knives
Or rocks
Just fists and feet
Nails
Teeth
And the only thing holding them back
Is the thinnest tissue
Of rules and fear and conscience
Gangs of child pickpockets
Pick you blind and leave you for
The streetsweeper
Laughing playing tag
Cherubic
So empty
So unworthy you were too
Remember
Twenty-five
Thirty
Forty
Was that when it happened to you?
Became a victim?
Behind every smile
Every one of them hungry
That's what worries you most
You remember
You know
A crackling flame lashing blindly
An avalanche
A runaway truck
Screaming
Flashing across the glittering ice of your precious predictable life in the
glaring
sunlight.
*****
Where we go by the cold light of day
In your pocket
In your purse
In a song on the radio
In the sole of your shoe.
By night, we scuffle under the bed push the switch on the ice maker jangle the wind chimes whatever it takes to make you start make you stir from your blissful
In the hem of your skirt
In your wallet
In the corner of your mouth
In the voice on the train.
Midnight you might think would be our favorite time when dreams roll in and wash over you you ragged flotsam on the sand but no we love the day the best the time of diversion when we can
Under your fingernail
In the smell of coffee
In the smoothness of your desk
In the ring of a phone.
We love you I swear we'll never leave you this our passion our purpose to pluck you always like strings on a fiddle like buzz in a wire always keeping you in play never letting you relax or find the kind of peace that lets you
In your inbox
On the sidewalk
In the stems of your glasses
Over the cubicle wall.
In the face in the mirror.
*****
Incongruity
In a public bathroom,
On a urinal,
A crumpled pamphlet rests,
Trying to reach patrons
With the word of God,
Ignoring incongruity,
Using it to attract,
Hoping, between flushes,
To save a soul.
*****
Rain
Listen
Listen
Listen to the rain,
That forlorn tattoo
Patting my windows consolingly
As if to say
“That’s all right”
“That’s all right,”
But only making it worse.
Like a thousand sympathetic shoulders,
The droplets seek to hide my pane,
Succeeding only in blurring it
For a moment
And streaming away
In
Tiny
Glass
Ri
vers.
*****
Synchronize
Three men with mallets
And swing drop lift
Swing drop lift
Pounding a
Spike in a
Railroad tie.
Each one in rhythm
And swing drop lift
Swing drop lift
Striking the
Spike with an
Echoing clang.
Smelling of sweat
And tobacco and
Coffee they
Swing drop lift
Mallets and miss not one
Beat.
Hot grimy sun like a
Brand in the sky and its
Bright blazing rays
Could fry eggs on the
Steel.
Bandanas and workshirts are
Soaked through with sweat and the
Faces are shining
With glistening
Sheen.
Expressions contorted
And swing drop lift
Swing drop lift
Muscles all straining
As if they could burst,
Still they continue
And swing drop lift
Swing drop lift,
Driving the spike despite
Blisters and thirst.
One then another
And swing drop lift
Swing drop lift
Moving as one somehow
Hitting in sequence
They swing drop lift
Swing drop lift
Filling the air
With a
Ping ping ping
Ping ping ping
Railroad song.
*****
Rail-Splitter
Rail-splitter cry in the deep dark night,
Raise your hammer and show your might.
In the lamplight you hear her scream,
Blue-faced beauty of whom you dream.
Puffy lips pouting and eyes ice black,
Cold like the steel on a railroad track.
Before, beneath, below, beyond,
All hell loose and all love gone.
Swing and clang and split and wood,
Do your job like a good man should.
Yes and no and yes and no
And yes and no and yes yes yes
And there you go and so much sweat
And work so hard for the money you get
And all day long so hard so strong
While sun beats down and bosses look on,
And damn and hell and bills to pay
And no cash left and fired today
And swing and pound and push and lunge
And now and now and now and
Scream.
Rail-splitter rest in the deep dark night,
You don’t feel better but you do feel right.
*****
Bru Tal Ity
And when the sun had
beaten down long
Enough, burning every last bit of humanity
Out
of his melting head, every bit of everything but
Roasting agony,
waves of heat curling off
Distorting the air around him like
ripples in a pond,
Marking the life and hope streaming out of
him
In silvery capitulation of the equatorial steam,
That was
when the rest of us knew we had
Done enough, done our jobs in
tearing him down as
Directed by the intuitive power of our
genes,
The war for reproduction driving us all to wreck the
com
petition, leaving more possible homes for the bio
logical
contents of our imaginary treasure troves. And so
we were left to
stand and watch with hearts both light
and heavy, basking and
revolted at one and the same time
As the Florida sun cooked him in
his skull
Like a lobster in its shell, waiting expectant
ly
with drawn butter in hand, savoring the thought of how
Fantastic
his flesh his emotions his dreams
Will taste when we sink our
teeth and that first squirt of juice
Squirt of flavor squirt of
soul passes through
The membrane between his world and our much
more
bru
tal
one.
*****
Home Fires
A.
A screaming woman, crimson gown,
Sweating loud and pushing down
Against the mothy blankets of
A bloody bed in Hometown.
Spreading legs and midwife arms
Reveal the feeble fleshy form
That strives to suck the Hometown air
Like some writhing, bloody worm.
Upon a stand a lamp glows dim,
Shadows hiding her from him,
Watching helpless by the door,
Husband praying, waiting for.
Outside rain is falling fast
Blinding lightning flashing past,
Thunder smashing with the shrieks
That bring the thing the life it seeks.
And then, a clap, a cry, a cleave,
A holy signal one must leave,
The final flood of pain and blood,
A new voice screams, a cord is cut.
From one come two, from two come three,
A child held high for him to see;
The husband smiles, the husband sobs,
It gives him life, his life it robs.
And the wailing woman, the wailing girl
Flicker like phantoms in the lamp-flame’s curl,
The light so tired, the shadows so long
Hide the greedy home fires,
Still blazing, still strong.
B.
Stained glass windows wall the place,
Color the cover of each proud face,
Stiff red smiles and dim yellow frowns,
Coal black eyes turned green look down.
High cold ceilings and marble floors
Echo the whispers, the organ chords.
Some of the fathers are robed in white,
Gliding like ghosts in a censered night --
Others are strapped into rare dark suits,
Collars for hardhats, new shoes for boots.
And there by the water, one by one,
Taking their daughters, giving their sons
To grim holy phrases and gestures and prayers,
To the God of their parents who watches them there.
And waiting in silence for the turn of her own
Is the mother of the child of the storm and the home,
No longer bloody or screaming with birth
But bringing her girl to the good holy church.
Finally, he calls her, his arms opened wide,
She gives him the baby, and stays by her side
As a blessing, a Bible, a bell, a splash,
And a new church infant is lifted at last.
The mother is happy, the grandmothers nod,
Another pure child is christened to God.
And the smiling mother, the crying babe,
Flare in the smoldering candle flame,
The wick so low, the glow grown small,
Just another home fire,
Still lighting them all.
C.
Out in the back yard, the little girl plays,
Finding the sunlight in Hometown haze,
Green grass and flowers polluted with gray
To the fresh mind become a bright, brilliant bouquet.
From the dirty streams, oceans, from the rock piles, thrones,
Princes from miners and scepters from bones,
Running and laughing and flying on swings,
Amazed at the wonderful thrill each day brings.
And soon she is learning with others in school,
Reciting her letters and numbers and rules,
And everything opens, becomes brighter still
With stories and dreams from beyond the bleak hills.
She pledges allegiance, she says all her prayers,
She learns to be good, to behave, to beware,
Finds new games to play with new friends from Hometown,
The right way to dress and to act and to sound.
At home there is more, from the mother who shows
How to cook, how to clean the house, how to wash clothes,
How to scrub the floor, make the fire, sew and buy food,
How to be a good wife, what a mother must do.
So each day the girl grows in her body and mind
And soon she is seven and then she is nine,
Under the dark skies, the whimpering wind,
The only place, every place, place without end.
And the loving mother, the loyal child
Live in the faint sun, the fire defiled,
The days so cloudy, the shine so dull
Mark another home fire,
Irresistible call.
D.
Dresses, tresses, messes, lessons
Fill the days of adolescence,
Blooming, brooding, blushing, breaking,
Dances, chances for the taking.
In a blink, the child is gone,
A vibrant woman carries on,
Graceful, gentle, hoping now
That life will be so bright somehow.
Gray skies forgotten, hard times ignored,
Roses from crabgrass at her word,
Closing mines she does not see,
Just the joy that youth can be.
And then, as she was taught and told
She finds the one, the love to hold,
The match, the man, the light, the loin,
The fated future she must join.
Beneath bright moons they walk together,
Getting closer, getting better,
Life amid the dying land,
Speaking, touching, holding hands.
They wonder, promise, make their plans,
Play the part of girl and man,
Prepared for years, they know the lines,
The epic poems out of time.
And the joyful mother, the imminent bride
Glow at the news in the light from the sky,
The moon so distant, the night so deep,
Set the same home fires,
Reflections they keep.
E.
Creamy satin, pearly braid,
A dress the mothers before her made,
Some are watching, some are dead,
All fulfilled within her tread.
Finally, the day has come,
Years ago, with screams begun,
The dream is true, the stories real,
The wonderful way they said she’d feel.
And then, a song, a step, a stare,
Down the aisle, locked in pairs,
Until the couple coalesce,
One from two, no more, no less.
People like a stained glass sculpture
Watch the wedding, face the altar,
Remembering when they were meeting,
Forgetting work and pain, retreating.
At last, the words, the ring, the gesture,
Priest pronounces, bless him, bless her,
Applause and music, laughter echo,
Streams of light strike through the window.
Beams of brightness brush the bride,
Tie the bridegroom at her side,
He lifts her, carries from the crowd,
Outside they kiss, he puts her down.
And the crying mother, the smiling wife
Shine in the sunlight elusive in life,
Everything happy, everything clear,
Disguises home fires,
Still potent, still near.
A.
A screaming woman, crimson gown,
Sweating loud and pushing down
Against the mothy blankets of
A bloody bed in Hometown.
Spreading legs and midwife arms
Reveal the feeble fleshy form
That strives to suck the Hometown air
Like some writhing, bloody worm.
Upon a stand a lamp glows dim,
Shadows hiding her from him,
Watching helpless by the door,