ECCENTRICITIES

by Jeffrey Park

Three
swift adopted
moons –
Brahma, Vishnu,
Shiva –
distorted
as they are
by the translucent
material
of the dome,
they never betray
who
is chasing
whom.

READY…STEADY…

by Jeffrey Park

Go
the flag drops and
the clock begins the count
acceleration
train, bullet, rocket, transonic
clock running
supersonic, ultrasonic, relativistic
clock running
superluminal, faster than
the speed of thought, fear, regret
outpacing the running clock
outrunning time itself
looking at time from the inside out
time as an oyster’s midnight pearl
a dark smooth surface
curving away into never
a soft voice
a brush of lips
a fractured law of physics
fluttering about
in the terrible wind of your
flight.

SEARCH ENGINE

by Jeffrey Park

Tracing random
threads
they force
their way
into my private sphere
through pipes
twisting constipated tubes
asking demanding
answers –
search me
(all blithe innocence
behind a veil
of dead links
and data retrieval errors) –
shrug
blank stare
if you’re not redirected
in five seconds
try pressing
here.

TRANSFORMERS

by Jeffrey Park

Refined processed denatured
enriched fortified
filtered and deoxygenated
multicolored multivitamins
antiperspirants anti-aging creams
joint replacement
retro-gene therapies
weekly Botox injections –
out with the old
and organic
in with the new improved
modern up-dated/graded/scaled
sinfully synthetic.

Bleed me freeze me
re-imagine/design/engineer me
render my flesh down
to its component molecules
reconstruct me
make me make me make
me better.
Release me.
Hold, behold me, Homo Artificialis.
And here’s the joke:
if and when the machines do rise
won’t they be be surprised
to find
we’re already here.

JOUR FIXE

by Jeffrey Park

He knows how to make an entrance
you really have to give him that –
strides into the room, feet clanking,
thorax gleaming with condensation.

Magnetic fields ripple and shimmer,
pacemakers skitter, dental fillings expand,
crack, fluorescent lights brighten
for an instant before sputtering to
a respectful grey.

With a low-pitched whine he swivels
his slotted visage, takes in the attendees,
weighing, assessing, bathing them
in his steady ultraviolet regard.
A steely smile.

Agenda:
Carbon-Based Life, Pros and Cons.
And the meeting comes to order.

THE COUNT

by Jeffrey Park

 

She knew quite well it was a lie – here to

count your electric sockets, ma’am,

won’t be a minute – but let him in anyway

and followed him from room to room.

Twelve, thirteen,

if he needed to play this game, it was ok

by her –don’t miss the one

behind the sofa. Nineteen, twenty – and

the one here by the shoe rack.

She admired the way he wrote it all down

sparing no effort in his subterfuge.

She was actually disappointed

when he declined her offer of a cup

of tea. Lots of sockets still to be counted

in this neighborhood,

he told her, more going in every day.

She double-checked though

after he’d gone;

he’d missed three sockets. What you’d

expect from government work.

HOME FROM SEA

by Jeffrey Park

Had he been a mariner my father

would have thought only in nautical

terms –leagues, fathoms, dead slow,

lines and shrouds and knots that are

speed and knots that are tied – would

have sailed the South Sea in search

of breadfruit and a nut-brown bride.

He’d have had wood-grain skin

and a stare that scoured infinity.

Had he been a sailor, my father would

have slept in a berth instead of a bed,

would have called the ship’s hold

his home. But he never sailed

on a ship at all. He never went to sea

or felt a deck roll under his feet.

A house far from shore was his frigate

and the barnacles on the basement walls

spent their lives dry and confused.

 

AN ELUSIVE SCENT

by Jeffrey Park

Running low on all fours
you follow the scent
moss clogging your nostrils like
mealy cotton wool
over fallen trees
over big stones
splash through the stream, find
the place of exit

the scent heads up and up
onto a high cliff, into
a high lonely meadow
running ahead in the light
slowing now
teasing
slightly stronger but a breath of air
and it’ll be gone.

But now…
Tackle it, pin it
down on the pine needles
I have you now you naughty thing
I’ll take a deep sniff and hold
you tight
in the labyrinthine twists
of my nasal passages
odor – fragrance – stink
tastes
like a memory.

DEADBOLTS

by Jeffrey Park

Deadbolt locks, one, two, three, four, five
of them secure the steel-reinforced
door like bulletproof medals on the chest of
a combat-decorated war hero, purple heart,
silver star, three – yes, three! – medals
of honor, all attesting to devotion to country
and unwavering courage in the face of
imminent peril, such as that of keeping the
nameless enemy who poses as a pizza
delivery boy at bay.

And he plays right along, leaving a piping hot
mushroom pie on the stoop after pocketing
the bills that we slide out under the door.
Clever bastard, but to no avail. Our defenses
are impregnable: shoot the bolt, draw
the chain, no unauthorized entry permitted.
We take it in turns to keep watch, brown
shoe polish smeared boldly across our cheeks.
And no one comes in. And no one goes out.
And for obvious reasons, no one actually
eats the pizza.

11/14/2010

by Jeffrey Park

November 14, 2010:
the day the Martians came
and the Venusians, the Jovians
the Neptunians and Uranians.
And the Plutonians, in no
mood to discuss just what was
and was not a full-fledged planet.
(Yes it is, no it isn’t, yes it is.)

And they stood in a ring with
many-toed feet clamped firmly
on the soil of my world, eyeing
one another, who would draw
their molecular dissociater first?
– close-up of lipless mouths,
slashed nostrils, squinty eyes
in their random twos and threes.

My neighbor and I, watching,
could only shake our heads.
How could anyone or any thing
come so far and through so many
cosmic rays just to shoot it out
for the honor of planting a flag
in some poor Earthling’s
barely tended patch of grass.

FORTUNES TOLD

by Jeffrey Park

Fortune Teller, reveal to me all my futures.
Will I meet someone nice, will she be
tall and dark and handsome? Will she hurt
me or will she lift me up and carry me on her

shoulder over vast and unseen landscapes –
Or will she leave me to perish or worse,
to live on and pour out my spirit bit by bit
in an endless seeking for revenge – Will there

be fame? Fortune? Ill gotten or deserved?
Show me the precise place on the path
where I must set my foot, the days on which
I need to wake up early to catch that inspired

sunrise. Take me to the wide window where
I will see it all spread out before me like
a shimmering field of grain; with your fingers
on my back spell out the names I should

call myself, the spot where I should pitch
my tent. Give me assurance, sure knowledge
that my horses will win the race on that
morning, my chickens will all come home

to roost. Tell me all, leave nothing out. Put it
down on paper, tuck it in an envelope
and slide it under my pillow tonight, stamped
confidential, sealed with a clairvoyant kiss.