The Poetry Of  
Steve De France
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
I don't know if you've noticed
but THINGS---themselves---have gotten A LOT MORE SENSITIVE.
I am not sure if they are new age things, or if they are things suffering some kind of linguistic
virus, or something caused by global warming, or maybe its nuclear proliferation----but whatever
it is---things are developing a bad attitude.
Think on it----people used to and still do talk about things in a very
negative and insensitive manner---for instance,
How are things?--people used to say. . . Oh...Things have gone to hell---was a common
answer. . . or things aren't so good----or things are pretty bad..
Or things never change---its the the same old shit day after day, or how's things hanging?
Now---after years of neglect and syntactical abuse things started
having meetings, support groups, and forming unions for things.
I see some of you are smiling---now you may choose to pass this off as
simply the misuse of a colloquial word or at worst as a sign of the deterioration of language in
Western culture and conclude that I am hysterical due to wide spread unemployment amongst
lexicographers-----
But I am telling you THINGS HAVE JUST ABOUT HAD IT!
Let me tell you about what happened yesterday, as is usual, and stick with me here,
Mr. O'Reily was brow-beating his wife about the same old thing for dinner
& Mrs. O'Reilly---as usual--- complained about the same old thing in the bedroom, telling Mr.
O'Reilly that the thing in his pants was an under achiever.
Well, things had better change screamed one of them. They both clicked off their night-lights and
fell fast asleep.
At the stroke of midnight on EASY Street where Mr. O'Reilly had spent many a happy year in his hammock
and where MRS. O'REILLY HAD SERVED LEMONADE, with a smile,
the whole mystery of THINGS manifested itself. First, the silverware clinked and
slid out the kitchen window; the blender & toaster held hands and jumped into the rose garden, the couch
& easy chair dropped their doilies and ran down easy street.
Well...that did it: the floodgates burst, so to speak, for all things that hung,
or things squirreled away in shelves & drawers, gathered together & fled out the back door.
The quarrelsome neighbors pretending not to notice the mass exit attributed this vision to their over use of
cheap gin and the lateness of the hour.
In the morning when the O'Reillys woke---each turned to the other and asked, How are
things?----- they looked askance at their barren house----and in that moment of epiphany knew
for certain things would never be the same again.
SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS
ARE MADE OF
If a poet colors Jupiter
green---it won't make it so.
Yesterday's meaning is
for yesterday---who are you now?
Today the sun comes up
on another planet
entirely---but rising from sleep
you stand
naked in yesterday's dream.
One night's sleep separates you
from an uncertain past, and points
toward a still more dubious future.
Sometimes
dead & living meet in ceremony
but generally don't mix,
except in poetry
or dreams,
or in holy people.
Everyone's illustrated
in a few fictive lines,
in the secret books of the underworld,
or in the cloud choked celestial arcade,
there
the minds of saints---paint by braille,
purple cows lounge or fly here or there,
as words do what you want them to---
give love a new tender heart to break,
or still seas and extinguish suns.
One minute now
until this day's care disappears.
Daylight hisses into dark,
night strides into shadowed
corners of your mind---until at last,
the eternal stage manager
wearing baggy pants, and over sized shoes,
lowers the curtain---why is he laughing?
Consciousness skips, among stars
as rampaging raptors, carry you between their jaws
and slip right off the known boundaries of earth.
TWO SNORTS SHORT
OF A POTATO SALAD
Smoke stacks from Petroleum Oil belch smoke & fire,
and under this cover of low foul smelling afternoon smog,
Suburban Dead in overly mortgaged SUV's
patrol local strip malls, bump over curbs,
run old folks from crosswalks, nick fenders,
and reflexively gag----trying not to think about
their 8-5 mind numbing job.
Smells of searing cow flesh, from fast food pit stops,
swirl suspended in the grease smeared canopy of sky,
and in a sudden wind change, droplets of animal fat
splatter in smears on the darkened windshields.
Old dead & young dead
waddle wide
into Big Buns Food Barn,
killer whales in bloodied water,
these ponderous leviathans hunt & gather:
27 kinds of sugar, 11 kinds of lard
51 varieties of cheese from France
& a hundred and one pounds of prime pork.
The dead know what the dead know,
they meet on desolate corners
& reiterate things,
things about things
the dead have been taught to say.
latte' things, blackberry things, green peace things,
world order things, windmills things, black holes in space things,
global warming things, beached whale things, lobster family value things.
They rush home in anger---the sky behind them---seemingly on fire.
On a tiny front porch---martinis in hand they watch
their offish offspring metaphorically wallow in potato salad.
They snort their approval & guffaw at family resemblances,
pig eyes, receding chin, simian forehead,
pink soft skin & spongy hanging white flesh.
They share brochures about Forest Lawn,
where their Crosses are already laid out, graves already dug.
The husbands of the dead---men in greasy jeans---oil rags hanging
smile foolishly---throw tools at one another---swear---drink Blatz beer
& drain oil from their trucks.
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