Poetics

Beauty, I’ve seen you pressed hard against the windowpane. But the ugliness was unsolved in the heart & mouth. I’ve seen the quick-draw artist crouch among the chrysanthemums. Do I need to say more? Everything isn’t ha-ha in this valley. The striptease on stage at the Blue Movie is your sweet little Sara Lee. An argument of eyes cut through the metaphor, & I hear someone crying among crystal trees & confetti. The sack of bones in the magnolia, What’s more true than that? Before you can see her long pretty legs, look into her unlit eyes. A song of B-flat breath staggers on death row. Real men, voices that limp behind the one-way glass wall. I’ve seen the legless beggar chopped down to his four wheels.