ON RETREAT
The way you reconstructed the dream was telling –
to communincate its exoticism,
even though you didn’t remember many of its details,
you said was like trying to take a bath in coconut milk –
but that there was a bengal tiger and a palm tree in there somewhere
(though these may have merely been on the carton that the dream figure poured,
soaking the white bed, as she aimed for the bathtub, but missed –
her brown arm jerking as she spoke to you with a distracted smirk).
I realized then that I didn’t know you as well as I’d thought:
beneath that prosaic exterior a latent Gaugin still joked,
portraying the numeric figures that ruled the daylight
as funky nudes caught on a steamy island, ruled by rhythmic forces
who were liable to command uncontrolable frenzies in those who dared
close their eyes, surrending self-respect to the tropical trance of sleep.
Of course, most regimens of self-help advise us that it’s healthy
to go native once in a while—that the best way to iron out the kinks
is to acknowledge the inner kink, that friendly freak
who, though upsetting at first, has your best interests in mind.
Which is to say your essence, if you dare find it,
is like the juicy part of one of those serious, psychological movies:
the characters at first are perturbed when they walk into the party
where everyone is naked, except for their glowering, vaguely medieval masks —
but once these are tossed onto the velvet chaise lounge,
it’s all love, kisses and the renewal of old bonds.
POLAND SPRING MANDARIN ORANGE
a slight accent
modulates your banality
it’s enough to encourage me
to continue on
with the Poland Spring Experience:
you are an ideal:
in Plato’s world
there must be room
for a form
that hugs to the norm
but with a smirk
that the smirk is orange
in your case
is merely incidental:
the small thrill you provide —
what carbornates our flighty world —
is the idea that normalcy
can be somewhat funky
it’s a message
that hides inside many brands,
the secret to their animation —
what makes the surface
of our artificial world glow
the way neon sculpture once did
before we became bored with it
and the blank walls it hid
