The Hard Way
I want to marry a Michigan militia-man who craves the taste of blood
I want to bring back 70s hairstyles
I want to reinvent prayer
I want to taunt muggers
I want to pickle my liver slowly, over time,
with little sips of scotch from a hidden flask
I want to order every single item from the J. Peterman catalog,
one each day, and pay the shipping charges
I want to make tortillas from scratch
I want to walk to work from Bay Ridge,
even though I don't live in Bay Ridge
I want to make tea from tealeaves grown in my backyard
I want to sleep on the roof year-round
I want to call up the man I haven't spoken to in two years
and ask, "What's happening with our relationship?"
I want to eat ice cream with my hands and soup with chopsticks
I want to have sex in the church confessional, confessing all the while
I want to send back the wine at Bouley
I want to vote for every candidate in the party marked "Other"
I want to write long poems on sugar packets
I want to swim like Flipper with Newt Gingrich on my back
I want to keep calling the number with the busy signal
I want to attempt a double axel with my flabby thighs
I want to sip from the water's edge
I want to rewrite the Bible as a Buddhist tract
I want to meticulously record the ravings of schizophrenics
I want to leave the entire Kama Sutra on my answering machine
I want to use an armadillo for a pillow
I want to suspend bubbles and snowflakes
I want to piece together a quilt of postage stamps
I want to petition all the office buildings to play Kurt Weill
in their elevators and lobbies
I want to take Flamenco lessons from a snobby and
temperamental choreographer
I want to use my pinkie as a unit of measure to calculate the volume
of a cloud
I want to hitch my Pinto wagon to a star
I want to write my term paper in the most intricate calligraphy
I want to raise my child to take risks
I want to dance on the head of a pin in high heels
I want to take my driver's test blindfolded
The Hearse for Tsaurah Litzky
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky is a little red Corvette
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky knows there exists a chance
for everything and a technique for nothing
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky's stereo plays only Ravel, Meat Loaf,
Janis Joplin and Brazilian torch songs
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky runs on root vegetables and wet dreams
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky needs a hosing down followed by a hot wax
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky begs to be taken to the drive-in
on Saturday night
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky brakes for women in headscarves,
teenage parents, and the lonely
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky is able to miraculously generate a parking
space
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky has a Bronx cheer for a horn
and mudflaps for despair
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky ignores the other red Corvettes
but tails the ice-blue Camaro from Jersey with wire spoke wheel covers
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky avoids the Via Venutto
while it seeks out the obscure medieval side streets
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky never coasts but has been known to cruise
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky has an ample and forgiving back seat
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky crashes through the police barriers
of inhibition
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky has loudspeakers blaring,
"This town is being officially occupied by Love and Desire"
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky has drag-races with Destiny
The hearse for Tsaurah Litzky makes hairpin turns
on bad hair days
Hopper
The joy of jangling Medeco keys on a ring
the ectasy of alienation and anonymity
padlocks strongboxes deadbolts shutters
security gates
the people stand up
in their barns diners peeling paint gas stations silos
and howl in a frenzy of hopeless delirium:
Hopper! Hopper!
Their mouths round with fervor
repeat the one-word anthem
of horror and despair:
Hopper! Hopper!
Like flying chaff
children of the corn
wearning collar grime like a banner
clawing at one another
as if suffocating in a boxcar:
Hopper! Hopper!
They chant the parched leaves
from the trees,
hum breakfasts of candy bars and Coke,
gin and aspirin
sing to cars going by so fast
you can only hear the pitch of the syllables
learn people's names
by process of elimination
recite prayers to a god they are certain is deaf
sigh lullabyes to the broken air conditioner
yodel at the town dump
throats choked with dust
their voices hoarsely raised:
Hopper! Hopper!
Celebrate the music of loose chains
banging against pipes in the wind
like some negatively-charged cast of Oklahoma!
waiting for a twister to sweep them all away.
Ladies Nite
All Margaritas, Daiquiris, Squirrels
watered-down peach
and barely banana
$1.99
Now is the time
I can get ahead
for half price
drink with a guy named Ed
who calls himself Steve
an accountant who can down
three beers in half an hour
Then it's back to Chelsea
stumbling under the industrial enamel orange sun
that bathes the building tops
like alchohol dilates
the hope in my dreams
And somehow I'm home
with a melon-colored buzz
kicking off glass slippers
RESURRECTION (for Sal Salasin)
I was having a perfectly pleasant
near-death experience
when some nincompoop with paddles
brought me back
will you please turn your hymnals
to page 336
Astonished to find
I was still working at my desk
even though
my heart had stopped
as unsubtly
as a senile person
in midsentence
I expire but
the OJ trial goes on
juicing on its own entropy
an endless procession
of new jurors
like the eager or terrified
at the gates of
Heaven or Hell
my eyes
I don't remember blinking
but according to the experts
they've been closed
for some time
Crown Industries,
Manufacturers of roll-up
plastic lighted portable disco dance floors
and other essential products for home and
industry
is proud to sponsor
the Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence
Will you please turn your hymnals
I try to stay awake
until I realize I am unconscious
drifting through the galaxy
picking my way among the celestial bodies
But this is how I always pictured death!
How dumb!
And I startle myself, once again, awake.
Does this qualify as prayer? I don't know.
It was just an observation.
Carol Wierzbicki
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