by Mark Taksa
Imagining the taste of her pears,
I entertain the naked girl with a story
about a bird that lands by a window,
balances on one foot, and carries a flame
in the other claw. Her smile is the chiseled ice
of the president’s lips. Love, I urge,
is a painter who brushes a fire into a cold thing.
She yanks her coat over her shoulder, proves
love is more than artful brushing.
If you are a lover of the body,
you will recognize that sting I feel,
which I felt in some other city
on some other afternoon, when I drove
by a biker, and that sting pushed my eye
to an opening under her dress.
My future is the amount of my mouth
on the naked girl’s pear. I tilt my arms
like wings and push out my words, hoping
to compose a fable the nude craves
as I balance on one foot.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Napoleon At The Fish Market
by Mark Taksa
The judge studies the fish as if it were a constitutional issue.
We reach for that same fin, as if it was the last cocktail
at the fund raiser for the plaintiff for love.
Imagining her own lips in the smile over my book
of recipes, the judge promises to let me buy the halibut
if I come to her chamber to teach her to cook.
The fish dealer takes the ice from under the fin
and drops it into his cocktail. He inhales
as if the fishy odor is perfume and says
Napoleon loved a woman with a fishy odor
and bought her the best silk, would
have paid the high price of this halibut.
The tightness of the judge’s jeans
reveals her path of judgment. From her gaze, I guess she is judging
whether the hand she waits for me to stick under my shirt,
in the pose of the emperor, should slide under hers.
When I was a kid I was schooled by an old tire I stole.
Its explosion announced my bad grade.
When my buddies drove away to witness the girls
wiggle on the boardwalk, I patched rubber—
so I buy the halibut without knowing its price.
The judge studies the fish as if it were a constitutional issue.
We reach for that same fin, as if it was the last cocktail
at the fund raiser for the plaintiff for love.
Imagining her own lips in the smile over my book
of recipes, the judge promises to let me buy the halibut
if I come to her chamber to teach her to cook.
The fish dealer takes the ice from under the fin
and drops it into his cocktail. He inhales
as if the fishy odor is perfume and says
Napoleon loved a woman with a fishy odor
and bought her the best silk, would
have paid the high price of this halibut.
The tightness of the judge’s jeans
reveals her path of judgment. From her gaze, I guess she is judging
whether the hand she waits for me to stick under my shirt,
in the pose of the emperor, should slide under hers.
When I was a kid I was schooled by an old tire I stole.
Its explosion announced my bad grade.
When my buddies drove away to witness the girls
wiggle on the boardwalk, I patched rubber—
so I buy the halibut without knowing its price.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Con Artists On The Beach
by Mark Taksa
Tricky as a magician draining beer
into a false bottomed mug, I empty coins
from hands of gamblers into my pocket
open to a hole under a palm tree.
I carry a satchel of dollars.
My mind wanders like a bony bird
among briny carburetors on the beach.
You winked to show me the other
players' hands. Now you swim from the daffodils
of your dress, on waves my eye transforms
into a bed of cash that cannot melt.
Fuck honesty! You play a banjo,
singing that only the artist of the trick
strokes the vulture perched on a Buddha.
Tricky as a magician draining beer
into a false bottomed mug, I empty coins
from hands of gamblers into my pocket
open to a hole under a palm tree.
I carry a satchel of dollars.
My mind wanders like a bony bird
among briny carburetors on the beach.
You winked to show me the other
players' hands. Now you swim from the daffodils
of your dress, on waves my eye transforms
into a bed of cash that cannot melt.
Fuck honesty! You play a banjo,
singing that only the artist of the trick
strokes the vulture perched on a Buddha.
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