The Last Hemingway on the Mayflower

A Poem by Alvah Goldbook

Decided To Alvah Goldbook

What does god want with my dreams? In the preface of all things, in all ways. To hide them in a flowerpot, to wait for spring, to water and nourish and only to neglect and leave to die.

Bore to all things! Bore to the Sky! Bore to the Road! Bore to the Light! Bore to the Trees! Bore to the government! and Bore to Time!

I’m going to have three children: Nevaeh (inverse of heaven), Jules and Naime: dropped from the sky, from loose blue pigment shakers, slipping on gravel and holding my freckles in place

fall (into my hot-desert-sand arms.)

Trying to keep skin from zipper teeth and swallowing dire thoughts (evil to him who thinks evil) in my cavities. Betting on the right numbers—luck aight my best chance for American Idol?

III

I lick the vitamins from city-sidewalks, openly, in front of the Daily Center, drunk on seven-dollar-imported-cologne and my tax-refund-check. $72.45 cents Mr. Governor. Inmate. Soulmate—(Dick Jones)is(Greatest Witness I Ever Had)

I want to meet a thousandaire—laid across Ft. Lauderdale swamps. Dress in white to improve the conditions for coconut-lily-pads. Humid cigarettes, gutter-ball tactic operations, waiting on elusive draw-bridges for a lost-dream girl—hiding in a pink-kissed shell.

Maybe I’ll see her, highly-fashioned, spilling the liquor from soggy eyelids. “All for a price,” she’ll fall clammy and breathlessly into my hands, stained from life-long-earned-pennies

to her sacrifice.

Her hands are soft—talcum-powder incense, that waves in the air, hollow at the pinnacle, eroding on the edges—reminds me of pretty flowers that awe me till I reach and grasp and yawn and grip to touch

their plastic pedals.

Why font on gremial appearances? Thou shall return to the same verdict, on petal-motion-perpetuals, streamline at worst, for the lucrative meanings, for cash-settlements—for my existing time waiting in over-stylized-bathrooms.

And alas!, Haha, I float into light bulbs, hidden within the space—a family portrait, a clumsy vase, a pack of cigarettes—empty, a calliope of movements, motions, ticks and tacks nick-nats and all assorted makings of a good housested. (Fireplace-pillows, carpeted tabletops and windows on floors to drool my remaining drops on loose-change postcards)

The midnight train came ten pass twelve eight pass three siren bird chirps, rings and things while my hand’s too cold for my pockets. A halo beam arches behind and over the neck and shoulder into the mirror reflection of a man in fright. Lips blue—wrinkled—dead meated chapped shoe-sole. Reach for the scissors, cut them lips. Throw them in saltwater. Sit in the corner for the, wait for the ambulance

A frozen moment, a shudder winter gust of ice cubes. Kitchen floor begins to crack, crackle, split, tear, fracture, bend, hurdle and snag. A layered gas chamber, breathing-sensitive-organ-matter- disemboweling-refraction laser watches my every move. LOOK OUT BUTTERFLYS! LOOKUP BACTERIA! DUCK COCKROUCHES! the government’s taping my phones

Transfer—in a cloud now. MY SHADOW! COVERS THE! WHOLE! CITY! fingers sit limply on angel knees. I laugh up a storm, snot out a hurricane, drool me a big-Olde-ocean and hunt over the edge (just for a second) to see every building burn in flames. (applause sign lights)

“Where’s the razor?” I need me to cut up some of this horizon, cut me up some lines. Cut me up some metal, for this junkyard needle. Snort me some of this horizon shoot up me some metal rail me a line of Life-Savers—spearmint—straight back—in tack—into the dome.

Would this river make a good noose? What did the pebbles say? Tell me they like my outfit. Tell me I’ve been a good atheist mostly though (to say the least) reinsure me that the light bulbs in the sky are not stars.

Plaque is this nation’s number one killer (Biggie’s number two.)