Foghead (Poems Vol.2)

BED-IN HOLIDAY

This is my seven-day bed-in holiday.

I’m working hard on my sweaty sheets,

working on them,

just like John Lennon and Yoko Ono

once did in Montreal.

Days trade places with nights –

the sun above my head,

then beneath my bed.

I’m not hungry, I’m not thirsty,

just enjoying this seven-day bed-in holiday,

writing a few things, a few words in protest…

in protest of who-knows-what –

I don’t remember anymore

and/or I only think of useless things.

And on the sixth day,

I wish for many more days like this.

And on the last day…

the coffee is spilled, the sheets are stained,

cars are suddenly honking far too loud,

and there’s not a single speck of time left

for any of my

bed-in protests.

THE CHILDREN’S FLEET

All the boys and all the girls in town

sit by the lake and pretend

that this lake is the sea.

Stephen is a pirate, Martha is a fish—

a fish that leapt from the water,

for she’s really a mermaid, Stephen,

you silly, silly fool.

Robert is the fisherman

trying to catch Martha,

but Martha resists,

because she knows that Clara,

who is right now queen of everything,

is in love with Robert.

Queen Clara is in love with you,

Robert, you silly, silly fool.

Adam is drunk as a cannon,

Edith is Lady Luck,

and everyone else is nothing more

than water between them.

GUNSLINGER TOM

Gunslinger Tom had been loitering

around the local bank for the past few days

with a loaded gun buried deep in his pocket.

He needed money

to buy himself a brand-new life —

the kind he kept seeing on television:

celebrities, fast cars, hot babes,

cola-cocaine & neon glow

in the pulsing heart of the city,

bourgeois parties & reeking cigars.

Eventually, Gunslinger Tom robbed the bank,

but during his escape

he got shot

in the back of the head

and died instantly.

Later that night,

the coroner leaned over his corpse

and dryly remarked

that not much had really happened —

the guy had already been dying for a while,

with a malignant television tumor

growing wild

inside his skull.

THE HOUR OF THE WILD ONES

Dozens of youths lounge in their cars

at an old, half-forgotten,

newly rediscovered drive-in theater,

watching the great Marlon B.

tear up the screen like a wild one,

his spellbinding voice

crackling through the radio.

Some are making out in the back seats,

some are pulling smoke from cigarettes,

most are sipping Coca-Cola,

and in the midst of it all—

in the not-so-distant dark—

the forest beneath the pale moon

whispers quietly

in the language of werewolves,

though no one really notices.

The roar of black-and-white motorcycles,

the roar of black-and-white wild ones—

all of it louder

than the world outside.

For a little while at least,

they lose themselves

inside their cars,

inside the movie screen,

inside the flickering reel,

inside the hearts

of those sitting closest to them,

they disappear from the world around them—

though just like that werewolf forest,

they all remain

under the very same

pale moon.

HOTEL BLUES

An old man sings his tired hotel blues,

sits on the bed and does nothing —

just complains through a trembling throat.

The rain outside is his backing band,

drip, drop, drippy, drip —

nothing catchy, no real tune to speak of.

His only audience

is a flickering red neon sign

and a fat, vampiric rat

living in the hollow wall by the bed.

The old man keeps singing his worn-out blues

and he’s starting to believe

he might’ve been the guy

Elvis once sang about —

the one slowly dying

in the Heartbreak Hotel.

He’s that lonely,

and maybe that’s exactly what this is.