Prismatic Small Talk by David Lawrence

I put a sheet over your friskiness to listen to the purr
Of your cat-o-nine tails.
You are as black
As the crossing of bad luck
But you are really white
Because I am not a believer in multi-cultural
Fodder.
I hate cats.
I love pussy.
No. I love the spirit with which pussy is invested,
The woman inside the glands.
The conversational
Glue.
If we talk enough about the fur that surrounds
Your rainbow,
I will take to task the color of your prismatic small talk.

Timber by David Lawrence

The glow is separated from the bowl like a yawn
While you are still sleeping.
I can’t find my fingers when they are kidnapped
By these gloves.
I suck on your air looking for candies
But give you my wallet
Because I am an all day sucker.
You arrived at the tip of my erection to build
Cities in my imagination.
I can’t keep away from you when you are in my face.
I like your confrontation.
The seal barks his last bark before turning
Into a wet log.
I am backstroking down the river with you on
My stomach.
When we arrive at our completion
I will look for inferences in your beginning.

Two by David Lawrence

TURTLE SOUP

The turtle crawls from the soup but leaves a reminder
Of its flavor.
I am gargling my spoon,
Trying to taste the flying saucer of the meat.
I come back to my disinheritance to find out where
My talents went.
Sometimes life inverts itself and you can’t get into
Its shell.
If I could live a hundred years
I’d be at home in the Galapagos Islands.
I go deep sea diving to find the bubbles in my head.
I hear the breathing of the soup in the turtle.
I drop a cucumber in my bowl to discover a crunch.

#

FISH AND FOOTBALL

Whatever you’ve seen has been forgotten mostly
But on the large part and the mainsail
You are heading away from shore to a disappearing
Port,
A home for Bonita fish
And marlin.
Everything that is going is gone and what remains
Is less than what you wished it would be.
You couldn’t contain life
In your handshake with yourself or your greeting
To your innuendos.
If I could get a hold of you I would bring you back
To this interception,
Carry the ball up field past the linebackers
And end up at the hot dog stand rewarding my turn.

The Suicide Killer's Papa by David Lawrence

There is no discussion as permeable as an excuse.
You cannot justify.
You strapped your daughter to dynamite.
So what’s that?
The tail end of cruelty wags you.
I should walk you on a leash.
I should hang you from your religion.
I don’t want to talk to beard ed halitosis,
An idiot’s stinking discourse.
Conversation stops when you garble
Your morals.
You have nothing to say that could justify.
Where is the honor in an honor killing?
Where is the martyrdom in murder?
Where is the human guidance in an angry mutant?

Dreams: David Lawrence

I’M NOT DREAMING

In this dream where contours are outlines of edgy behavior and hallucinations are meager shakings from the salt of parched reality I am not dreaming.

My life travels in front of me like a cloud in which words are kites posted with hieroglyphics of my failures.

I tell you its not a dream. But you aren’t there to catch my drift. I think of the drift of a boat at sea and snow falling at Vail when I was young and still could afford to ski.

It’s not that I fail to remember my night time dreams but that my dreams want nothing to do with me. They disappear into their own glamorous world of retrocession and ignore me because I am too soaked in reality like a self-immolating wick.

At night my mind is vacant and stripped of dreams. During the day I wander around like a discarded image and hang onto a mirage that is burying its camels in an oasis of sand.

#

COUGHING DREAMS

I choked on a dream.
I lit your cigarette in the hope that you’d die.

I couldn’t remember an image
Except you burning in your sheets throwing
Matches at me.

This was a nightmare.
Or was it?
I didn’t know you or the dream.

I was full of negative hallucinations.
My lungs couldn’t take it all in and my sinuses
Dripped bizarre antagonisms.

Quotes: David Lawrence

DISSENT

My sixteen-year-old boxing student wears
A button,
“Dissent is patriotic.”
I tell him that he is too young to vote;
His dissent is meaningless.
I tell him,
“Beating up arrogant youth
Is sublime.”
But I don’t hit him.
I am angrily amused by his confidence.
An amputee swings by on crutches.
Is he a veteran?
He has given a limb.
Sammy has given an opinion.
Since when is cutting a limb out from under
A soldier patriotic?

Two by David Lawrence

About Taking Punches


The afternoon flicks its lighter and the flame is gray as a squirrel.
This is Brooklyn.
The colorless land.
I see the ghosts inside out and the drained appreciation
Of their blood.
Frivolous has died and indifference smokes a cigar with boredom’s lips.
My shoulders get stuck when I shrug them.
I can’t get excited about the dance of mediocrity and indifference.
What can you say in favor of Brooklyn?
Walt Whitman once lived here.
He was a fag
Back when it was a demerit rather than an act of self-righteous rebellion.
What am I doing here?
I work as a trainer at Gleason’s Gym.
Some of my brain cells have died.
I am looking forward to a cemetery filled with failed bobs and weaves.

#

Letting Go


The artificial stooge is not as dumb as the natural reject.
I climb the pinecone to get at the tree.
How many times do I have to tell you that I love you
To make you go away?
I cup the ocean to see if my fingers will turn into squid.
I don’t know what you want from me because
I don’t know who you are.
I walk hand in hand with myself to try to get to know
Why I don’t like me.
Is it something I said?
A thoughtless deed that I did?
Or is it pretense so that I don’t get too attached to myself
And can’t let go when it’s time to die?