JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

l.

I’m perfect

from the tip of my osculation

to the cornerstone of my

toenails – perfect

like a Geiger counter in ice.

 

ll.

Thank you Miss

I’ll have a little more of that

ectoplasm please

it’s good for the libido

so deliciously liberating.

What’s that, your husband

became a monk?  Could we

get together sometime, just

the two of us?  Friday after

prayers perhaps?

 

lll.

My friend Sigmund

is translating Gray’s original

manuscript. Into German of course.

He got down to a few inches

below the navel, became fixated

there – for decades scholars followed

him to see what he was up to.

I can show you what he was up to, Miss –

5 o’clock, behind the Coliseum.

 

lV.

But I digress

we’d got around to the wishbone

hadn’t we?  You know, some

politicians spend half their lives

as liberals, socialists even,

until some rich uncle leaves them

an apartment building or an oil well

then snap.  Close your eyes darling

it’s like everything you ever imagined

moving from back benches to boudoirs –

bedrooms they call them these days.

 

 

V.

Home is

where the beating Laundromat is

the absolute center of space and time

24 hours every day

even while the body is sleeping

dreaming of Elysium

background music of everything.

What’s love got to do with it?

That’s one of the best kept myths

isn’t that so?

 

Vl.

If you place your stethoscope here

right here, don’t be afraid

you will hear the hit parade

gurgling its way round and round   

like yesterday in a doggy bag. 

Fasting is good for the system

it hushes the symphony until all you can hear

is the Dalai Lama on his mountain top

chanting his endless om.

 

Vll.

Dem Bones

they always get in the way, don’t they:

clavicle, tibia, fibula, vertebrae, these days

they have a machine that can

photograph your silhouette in black and white

a frightening thought but

quite topographical really –

with all the verve, passion and agony

bleached out of it

leaving only a grinning copy of you

to show that you were

here at all.

 

Vlll.

Procrastination

does not necessarily mean

missing the main course

loin cloths were invented before

tablecloths by Homo Vulgaris

as any Scotsman worthy of his kilt

will tell you, cutting into his haggis

to expose a pair of tartan suspenders,

wooly army issue socks

and knobby knee caps

 

lX.

So my dear Miss,

may I thank you

for participating in this course

the trajectory of which has been

artfully concealed by generations

of baroque painters.  On Friday

when hopefully after prayers or

behind the Coliseum we will have

our next tête-à-tête

I will introduce you to the Animal Cell,

the Ovum, the Spermatozoon,

the Sternococcus and the other Articulations

of the Lower Extremity.