Yvonne: Poem # 1
Who owns the million monarchs swarming their way
up the rocky Central Coast? Who can herd our constellation
of stars into a coral? Has anyone tried to regulate the path
of a level-five tornado in North Texas? Your beauty
comes ashore. Men of wisdom have evacuated days ago.
God help the villagers who arrogantly stayed behind,
believing they knew the limits of your strength. The fools.
Power comes from the absolute, binding laws of nature.
Your face, like the Tsunami, is free. It lands on whatever
shore of arms and legs and lips it chooses. It sets the rules.
You may possess us, order us to be faithful. Victory is yours.
We may only negotiate our terms of surrender. In truth,
there are no terms, since all contracts are rewritten the moment
you feel like editing them. If you spread your light to one
thousand faces, we must hold our tongues, never try to possess.
You are on the move, able to scratch along the edge
of the atmosphere. We look up and see a rocket blazing by.
There is no vote on anything like this. There is no democracy.
Yvonne: Poem # 2
This is a partnership with a meteor. I feel sorry for the men
who loved you who were not poets. Normal men would think
they had made a deal, concluded an agreement, had security.
The idiots. Of course I all will always be available for you,
like I am available for an earthquake. When it hits, my plans
come to a screeching halt. There is no risk in upsetting
the delicate balance of power, since you have all the power
and there was never any balance. You knew I loved you
at first sight. That is, in itself, security in a fickle world,
insofar as a flash flood could be said to need security.
You say that I am dangerous, (peligroso), and maybe I am.
But how can one volcano judge another for being volatile?
If your eyes, (containing storms), could have fear, then that
is a great mystery. My question is: If I drop my poem
into the wall of hurricane, will the winds savor my words?
The Parking Lot God
The vandals kept breaking into our hybrid Honda
in the parking lot just outside our Osaka apartment.
This didn't make any sense,
since there is so little crime in Japan.
Being of Christian origins,
we sought the help of Jehovah, Elohim, Jesus Christ, The Holy Spirit,
but to no avail.
The car kept getting burglarized.
Driven to an awkward ecumenicalism,
due to our desperate situation,
we sought the council of a local Shinto shrine master
who cleared the situation up for us quickly.
“Your God,
is he not called, in your faith,
The Lord of Lord,
The King of Kings.”
“Is he not the God
who is above and beyond all other Gods,
the Creator of the Universe,
the Omniscient and Omnipresent?”
“Well, yes,” I replied,
rather surprised at his grasp of our religion.
“Why would that matter?” I inquired.
He shook his head with pity at my lack of understanding.
“Your God,”
he continued, “is too important
to bother with a problem
in a parking lot.”
“In Japan,
we do not bother the highest gods
with petty, mundane affairs,
out of respect for their high position.”
“Have you installed a parking lot god?”
he asked. “What!” I exclaimed. “You just
don't go around installing gods!”
“We do,” he said gently. “They're in everything.
You just have to recognize that
and ask for their protection.”
I stormed out of there, infuriated
that such superstitious nonsense
would be foisted upon me. But later,
I realized our insurance company
would eventually cancel our insurance
if they had to keep paying out.
So I found a low-ranking village priest,
and he installed a simple offering altar,
rather like a large birdhouse with a wall taken out,
and chanted some very rapid prayer that was incomprehensible.
Every day I send my daughter out to offer rice to that thing in there.
I am too ashamed to do it myself, which makes my wife laugh.
Thankfully, my insurance agent agreed to renew our policy,
since there have been no more incidents in the parking lot.
On a sad note: The police eventually figured out
who the car burglar was. But they could not arrest him
as he was found dead, next to a Nissan four-door
he had been trying to pry open with a slim jim.
Of course I hadn't wanted anyone to die
just to keep our cars safe, and so I felt guilty.
But the aloof Japanese neighbors who all park there
have been smiling at me ever since.
The Poetic Master Of A Hundred Railways Is Silenced By Cowardice
My gay friends would say I'm a straight bottom
because I have crushes on lipstick lesbians and
tomboy straight girls with athletic bodies and
macho hobbies. How could I not have a crush
on Pam, the confident conductor of a boutique rail
line winding through small towns frozen in time.
She strides through the car beaming happiness,
to old ladies and babies alike, and frumpy Iowa
tourists. She's wearing jeans that are both lose
and tight at the same time, which is impossible.
Her white, long-sleeve shirt looks mannish, but
her tight black vest shows her personal trainer's
form perfectly. She gets to me and psychically
sizes up the whole matter instantly. She pauses:
“Well?” “Um, oh yeah, here's my ticket,” I reply.
She pauses again, since the Universe is saying to
her and I, “He is supposed to say something
hot now.” “Pam!” I say, reading off her name tag,
“That's my favorite name!” She puts her hands
on her hips and tilts her head and asks “Why?”
“Um, because I have a good friend in Los Angeles
with that same name.” She turns away, bored.
The Universe says, “Melvin. You blew it!
You're the poet. You had the spotlight.
You must move mountains with your words!
What the Hell was that wimpy performance?”
I sigh in resignation. The Zen priests would hear
of my feeble gambits with women and say, “Strike
while the iron is hot! Walk the razor's edge!”
The train rushed past horses frolicking above
on lonely trails through fecund meadows, past
virile bulls stolidly grazing, still and strong
as black cliff boulders. Splotches of forest
heroically climbed the breasts of steep mountains
and water surged through creeks below. The train
roared, “Melvin! Confess your love with every breath!”
Shanowa, April, 2011
Every few months another picture comes.
And then proclamations of love.
And as you grow older and older,
I find I love your face more and more.
The signs of aging look angelic on you
as though the Holy Spirit moves
through each wrinkle and every gray hair.
Of course I am not well and you are not free.
But I should love to love you as an old woman
and spend my days just holding your face
in my hands worshipping the ever-deepening eyes
that look into an eternity of love inside you
and a world of people who idolize you.
Your mouth, your teeth, as ever, are still perfect.
Even when you change, you change perfectly.
It is as if Time itself is making love to you
as you pass, some twelve years later than me
through the gate of late middle-age.
If I have to wait forty years for you,
it won't be slightest inconvenience.
Writer's Biography:
Currently he is anthologized in the Poetry Salzburg Review, (University of Austria at Salzburg), Beatitude Golden Anniversary Issue (1959-2009), The Las Positas College Anthology and Poets From Hell (New American Underground Poetry). (His works are also archived at numerous universities across the united states.)
Mel C. Thompson is a product of the San Francisco open mic scene and was first published in their underground zine ‚Bullhorn‚ in 1990. At that time he started Mel Thompson Publishing under the labels of Cyborg Productions, Blue Beetle Press and Citi-Voice Magazine, where he published such literary figures as Michael McClure, Alan Kaufman, Daniel Higgs and Bruce Isaacson.
In the 90s his poetry was also published in such magazines as The Chiron Review, The Bay Area Guardian, Wordwrights and the The Haight Ashbury Literary Review. He featured extensively in such venues as the Paradise Lounge, Café Babar,The Exit Café and the Chameleon Club.
In 2008-2011 he was published frequently online at such sites as "nthposition,com," "silencedpress.com" and "languageandculture.net," and also appeared in print in The World Poets Journal (China), Jackknife Express (Canada) and Over The Transom (San Francisco).
In the last few years he was also featured at The Berkeley Poetry Festival, The San Francisco Beat Museum, The Frank Bette Center For The Arts, the San Francisco Park Branch Library and at the Felix Kulpa Gallery in Santa Cruz. Recently his poem, "On The Search For God In Detroit" was translated into Chinese and published world-wide.
He has been written about or interviewed by media outlets ranging from USA Today, The Los Angeles Times and Canadian Public Broadcasting.
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