Carli Wheeler

Maestro Interlude

I speak fluent song-and-dance-man, abridged
and not just with The Supremes or the Radioheads.

I am your maestro
and write compound meters, dynamic rhythms.

I hear the coda of your heart, accentato.
As clearly as any kettle-drum, I follow.

My brilliance as a honky-tonk, rag-time charmer
would stun you.

I strum the waltz interlude the way we ought to,
i.e on my own.

I can’t complain:
I’ve been able to locate the silence… still, still.

It’s gratifying that I can always
Wake up before your dreams are plunked on my guitar.

As soon as juke-box music breaks out,
I roll over my lullaby; leaving my song to haunt you.

I am a prima donna. A lyricist of my age,
but I don’t have to be.

A few years ago
I saw a man tapping his foot. As if anything can be turned into song.

A night before last, a dove-chord was calling, singing, begging.
​clear as a tambourine chiming, orchestrating me to dance with ghosts.
​

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Demi Lovato

an imitation of Gertude Stein’s “Susie Asado”

Lose lose lose lose lose her.
     Demi Lovato.
Lose lose lose lose lose her.
     Demi Lovato.
Demi Lovato which is jade head junk.
A stout on the shoe this means tin tin issues.
When the new dark red is dirty it is orange, it is a blue-green buyer.
This is a no this is a no there are the shouts to jam. These are the drys these say
the shys to keep a plug on Suci.
Suci is short for succubus.
Pot. Pot is the result from a bit of the cannabis plant. Cannibis calls, the new bags are in
     bobbins, bobbins which push and pull and hide dirt, hide dust it must.
          Bot tum sup.
Bot tum sup. Bot tum sup lease a sash hold, ignore the dull and a bilby has pillows. It shows
a
     nut.
What is a nut. A nut is disharmony.
Lose lose lose lose lose her.
​

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Alien Attack!

an alien cento

Some things I do not profess
to understand, perhaps
they understand everything.
They’re on our side. They forgive us.

They peek at us,
they see us in this world illumined and pasteled.
Scanning the dark matter,
the nothingness, that now the heads say is chockablock.

Mysterious voyagers from outer space,
Attenuated, golden—shreds of lace.
And while I laugh,
My spirit crumbles at their teasing touch.

You may not believe it,
but such people do exist.
Their bodies look like cauliflower,
And those who watched them were confirmed in faith.

America, as much a problem in metaphysics as
it is a nation, earthly entity, an iota in our galaxy.



Sources:
The Abduction by Stanley Kunitz
American Journal by Robert Hayden
The White Fires of Venus by Denis Johnson
The Alien by Greg Delanty
Aliens by Amy Lowell
The Aliens by Charles Bukowski
Taken Up by Charles Martin 
--
Carli Wheeler