Julien Poirier

Four square monks drive a Coupe de Ville Through the vale, over the hill To get to where the savings are, They square their shoulders and point the car They bang their heads when the radio blares That song about the lady who bought the stairs And the dandy in back swirls down the chrome handle To cast weird sun on his pilgrim sandal Where tokens once slurried to a buttercup Hajj What now? O shimmering mercantile Alcatraz! Mobius ministries fringe the haze Of toothbrush choirs in a Yangtze glaze Foaming in pollens of this lobotomized valley Ever since Yankee Candle broke up Bee’s Alley Where skanking confederates Did trail natty satins, debt Free, and Sanity herself (Now a scent, top-shelf) Administered to gutter pirate queens Mini homecomings woven on the cosmic screen And whispered in a turtle’s ear, Kid monk you dream, it was the beer You vowed to brew Just like the thread will lose its screw Just like the brain will shed its wrinkles, Diverting shipwreck’s periwinkles To be reborn in a lonely place, Truth’s best conducted by an unclaimed face

Imaginary book on Imaginary paper in Imaginary hands Imaginary dance on Imaginary floor in Imaginary lands Imaginary phone and Imaginary car Imaginary raising of Imaginary bar Imaginary kid Imaginary tree Imaginary you makes Imaginary three Imaginary soul Imaginary death Imaginary line Imaginary breath Imaginary neighbors with Imaginary friends Imaginary road with Imaginary bends Imaginary pot Imaginary beer Imaginary death Imaginary fear Imaginary love that stops you dead Imaginary bullet of Imaginary lead Imaginary day and Imaginary night Imaginary wind Imaginary kite Imaginary heat and Imaginary ice Imaginary toppings on Imaginary slice Imaginary Emerson meet Imaginary Poe Imaginary poet Imaginary crow 1-9-16

I am here for a very particular reason: to buy a 6-pack of beer and berries out of season all for you, i did it all for you I noticed an oil spill on my drive past the bay, emergency broadcast on the radio —What do you have to say? all for you, i did it all for you You chopped down the plant that used to grow my pants, resurrected it in Indonesia like a blow-up doll with amnesia all for you, i did it all for you Poor people once lived here but you flooded the valley with psilocybin carcinogens, and forced the kids into shooting galleries all for you, i did it all for you You gave poor people jobs then you forced them to act like robots lining up for a real live heart attack, made them take apart their futures then you sold the parts back, repurposed the sutures to close a robocaller’s rap all for you, i did it all for you You got children in slums to make things that break, your unspoken credo— “If it lasts, it’s fake.” But you were there first when we were dying of thirst, with a pint of chilled water each, for me, my wife and two daughters, and even a kewpie doll and a tiny stuffed puppy —for my wife some paper slippers, for me, a stuffed yuppie —You saw every decision that I would make first, and you did get there first when we were dying of thirst every decision i make is part yours, every step i take, i take on your floor You mangled my fingers, polluted my streams, screamed in my face, closed deals over my dreams all for you, i did it all for you (and now it fades out, “The Commodity Sings to its Beloved” song. They’ll say it was a good idea done wrong —“They should have got a bigger budget, done it as a singalong.”)

The baboon is eating strawberries expired on the shelf of the Ft. Bragg Safeway. A coastal landscape with waves like inexpertly torn tinfoil hangs above his left shoulder at the check-in desk of an abandoned motel. The ocean itself is only a sound through a torn window screen where some hardscrabble bush about to flower is just a smell. Will something appropriately random please happen to convince me reality is still playing with a full deck?