1. A Steinbeck Aha

 

Peering upward from the apogee

of infinite soaring mirrors

I watch you stray far off course.

Thus is produced an aha moment

as luck exits the equation.

 

You’re exposed like a water lily

that floats on thick firmament.

 

I fix my focus on

your dusty gray work shirt

as you stoop to pull chickweed

from ever widening cracks

in the pavement.

 

A bitter wind whips waves—

the lights of Seaside

cauterize Monterey Bay.

 

 

2.  Transmogrified

 

He was kept after school

due to acute insubordination.

He fought substantiation,

a train at the roundhouse

getting loaded with coal.

 

He weathered transmigration

across riven continents

to make a stand as a race

that in time gained ground.

 

He tossed formulas down

crevices of secret canyons,

learned his lessons

devoid of impressions.

 

In accordance his teacher

made him recite ABCs

backwards endlessly.

 

3. Hat Trick

 

My shoulders pressed firmly

against the back wall

of McFly’s nightclub

on Saturday night.

Capitalist ESPN beams

Giants battling Dodgers.

Budweiser ubiquitous,

the assembly salubrious,

will reach fever pitch

once music commences.

 

Then a commercial:

the black bear

bounces a basketball

between its hind legs

like a Harlem Globetrotter.

 

The best mudder won

the Derby this afternoon.

Subway cars ramble,

rattle in my ears

like bulletproof cobras.

                    Predatory

 

There are quite enough scallywags

and false prophets among us

to swindle any god

out of every drop of blood.

 

We evidence ostentatious laissez faire

connoisseurs of exotic wines and fruits

along the palatine boardwalks

that span massive galaxies.

 

Surrounded by scoundrels, would-be

devils and and ghouls we’d just as well

skedaddle, lest lay black tracks

while evaporating in a vapor trail.

 

Resonance is tested as resistance

evinced by the rooster’s boisterous

cock-a-doodle on a dim chilly morning

when coastal fog gives up the ghost.

 

 

Thomas Piekarski

 

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