Hi, folks. For anyone who's interested, my fourth book of poems, What To Do If You're Buried Alive, is out now! I'm doing a little promo run, trying to build up reviews. So for the next few days, if anyone would like a FREE electronic copy, send me a private message and I'll send you a pdf. (Sorry, the Kindle version isn't ready yet, so I only have pdf at the moment.) If you'd like info on my previous books, feel free to cruise over to my website. I'll include some sample poems below, as well. Thanks, in advance, for your consideration! :)
Cheers, Michael Meyerhofer
ONCE AGAIN, I FAIL TO LEARN QUANTUM PHYSICS
Now I fear I’m too far behind,
having failed to learn the names of birds,
let alone the trees they live between,
plus the nouns of the body
whispering from their rooty Latin throats.
So too the logic of chopsticks,
the exquisite currency of synonyms,
a better word than parallax
for the moon-jump over hay fields.
Even shop class seemed like witchcraft—
the strange philosophy of jigsaws,
how a crankshaft’s dervish
brought us from horse to Lamborghini.
Plus the coordinated gibberish
of bones, foreign as the after school innards
of a piano. So for years, I sidestepped
the stoic glint of Bunsen burners,
maps of the ocean floor,
the sad genealogy of the Caesars.
But now, one by one, they call me back.
Here, some fool strings horsehair
over a hollowed coconut
and makes music. Elsewhere, Cree mothers
swaddle their babies in peat moss.
Thus, the names of the Orkney Islands,
still life of the Nazca spider,
symphony of the periodic table.
Until I am told to watch as two light beams
fired through cardboard prove
the existence of alternate universes.
And that quickly, I forget
the capital of France. The formula for milk.
Which blossoms open first, and why,
to the sun’s wild, pyrite tongue.
AN UNREPENTANT CONFESSION
That was the year I shoplifted
a bottle of Aunt Jemima pancake syrup.
Homecoming weekend. I was out
with a carload of boys I hated
but needed desperately to impress.
We were chugging beers on back roads,
tapping each empty can against
the window before tossing it out,
tin flashing in the windy moonlight.
Somebody said we should
vandalize the coach’s Camaro,
suggested we stop for shaving cream
and syrup and maybe toilet paper
to toss through the dark biceps
of the cedars wreathing his backyard.
Somebody paid for a twelve pack
of toilet tissue (how to steal that?)
while another boy slipped a can
of shaving cream in his varsity jacket,
and I—who played no position,
who never lettered in anything
and didn’t even have to take P.E.
thanks to a doctor’s excuse—volunteered
to walk out with that plump bottle
stuffed halfway down my jeans.
I got away with it. Somebody else
called the privilege of leaving
sticky figure-8s all over the windshield,
squeezing until his knuckles went white
and the bottle wheezed in protest,
but I was the one who snuck it out.
GOVERNMENT CHEESE
We called it Reagan Cheese then—
handed out by the government
in thinly-boxed loaves
to poor Midwestern families, part
of Ronald Reagan’s plan to gain support
while using up excess dairy supplies.
I remember its odd nuclear-yellow
color, its thick processed taste
and the way it never melted right
but at least the boxes fit perfectly
around my brother’s baseball cards,
at least as box after box
was stacked in the refrigerator,
my parents slicing hunks over crackers
or plain white bread, covering them
in mustard and butter until
it could be called a meal, for a time
their eyes glowed. This was free
they stressed—as though victory
could be obtained simply by getting back
the leftovers from what was taken.
MY MOTHER SENT ME
a text message
from her coffin.
It said Glad
you're not here.
She's always doing
stuff like that. She says
it's to help me
savor my remaining
days. But I know
it's because I'm
the only one left
who hasn't changed
his number.
Submitted May 20, 2015 at 05:11AM by troublewithhammers http://ift.tt/1FtCnp8 Poetry
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