Paul Kesler Poems

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11.
Neue Ordnung

As the stock market rises and
the sweat from maquilladoras drips to the
rhythm of pounding machines,
smiling investors swill champagne,
...

12.
If Age Knew Its Youthful Wood

The trick is to manipulate the articles in the room in such a way that the chair is fooled, so that instead of arriving at midnight, like it always does, it will come around mid-day, while you are away at work. Arriving, it will pry the door open in a clumsy fashion, the metabolism of its peculiar constitution damaged by the dimly-recognized, but nevertheless distorted similarity to the room in which it normally finds repose.

Just how you reconfigure these articles, of course, is not a crucial matter - whether the window curtains, for instance, are tied in such a way that they partially reveal or totally obscure the fire escape. The throw rug before the bathroom, however, might be moved to the dining hall - this will disorient the chair, and possibly, if you are lucky, cause it to break or splinter its legs. The ashtrays, for their part, might be rearranged, placing one on top of the radio (the chair will hardly expect it in such a ludicrous place) , while another might be tilted at a slight angle by the side of the kitchen sink. Meanwhile, the bedspread could be ruffled, not completely ripped aside and tossed, but snarled, mildly tweaked here and there. It's possible the chair will approach tentatively, believing you're asleep, and this is a vague risk, but it will leave abruptly when it realizes there is no one there after all, especially when the intermittent silence caused by lapses in the traffic outside brings it to sudden lucidity.
...

13.
Circular Journey

You are somewhere uncertain; in a cave, most likely. There are no windows; no sound of streetcars. Before you on a desk is a fungus in the form of a human ear.

You pick up the fungus, put the narrow end to your mouth. When you breathe into it, the entire cavern quivers and a sound leaks from the walls like the drone of a million souls.
...

14.
Sirens Of Night

Gambling moon
whittles the darkness,
daggering down
to the vortex of the eye.
...

15.
The Way Things Work

I. The Customer

You have arrived at the diner in the middle of the night. It is closed, but the waitress, who is the only occupant, opens the door as you approach. She has the face of the usherette at the movie theater three hours earlier, who was also a dancer in the ballet you attended. You do not know her name. She’s wearing sleek dark stockings that whisper as she walks. Her black hair is styled in a bowl-cut bob with straight bangs over the eyebrows. Her skin is white; her eyes blue.
...

16.
No, No, Cesare

Caligari sent you, I can tell –
you have that awful musty smell;
moldering hair and listless sway,
as if you died just yesterday.
...

17.
William Randolph's Hearse

Oh, William Randolph's hearse was a pretty little thing,
When you pressed a little button you could hear the angels sing.
Sure, a dead man's hard of hearing, but what is that to you
Who can still pick up a paper and enjoy your goodies too?
...

18.
Catechism

There is the question of the garden, the snake,

the question of gold
and the sundial's scything shadow;
...

19.
The Sage's Doubtful Escape

PHILOSOPHER:
'I find the best way to gather no moss is to
examine the stones very carefully, making sure the
stream runs quickly around them.'
...

20.
Merry Missive To A Tartuffian Televangelist

Take care what you disclose
in your customary pose,
for the feisty rats of rumor
and the spiders of surprise
...

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