Three Anthropomorphic Dinner Poems

 

1.

 

Merci and good luck to us

is the bon voyage of modern

times, it buzzes oddly in

the pocket, or next to them

in bed, early humans of

our time

 

2.

 

I thought you were

a different kind of man

your skeleton is not a movie

projector why do you require

stories with wild players

enjambed inflection points and

punchlines, to glow

 

3.  

 

Maybe if in the time

it takes this already hot

water to boil, I can

write a poem read a book

draw a picture keep my mind

attuned to the grumbling

humming buzzing tweeting whispering

whistling whiskering fissuring

startling crumbling drumming

fuzzy fleeting glistening

thickening bickering listening

departing snowballing fumbling whooshing

loosening helplessly melting sheltering

sweltering spiraling drunk-dialing

stoned-smiling beguiling achy

festering growing snowing wintering

all-knowing splintering mystifying multiplying

lying truth-telling sleep-selling belly-filling

numbing swilling humming buzzing grumbling

repeating uh what was I talk aboutening

yowl enough to recharge the love it

has for life, this will be the

tastiest mush I’ve cooked in weeks. 

 

bad mom with the sugar veins

bad teeth

bad genes

if it’s rotting in my head

of my own volition

then that’s one thing

but to be the one holding you down

knowing too well the choking feeling

of biting that damn X-ray thing

bringing you at seven in the morning

to breathe some gas in your nose

and have a molar plucked out 

years before it's time

well then it must be a 

shortcoming of a whole different sort

was I supposed to be able to 

protect you

either from the soft teeth 

passed down from the ancestors

or else from the soft brain

ever yielding to  the itchy sensation

of always-needing-more?

Day 3

A headache like a vice grip

the kind of mole wrench I imagined

for days inside of my mouth

like that soviet spy scene

but the metaphor is out of the poem

and wrapped around my scalp

it feels like my teeth 

are stretching their legs

and I don't have the energy

let alone the bravery

to ask for a little relief