Sunday 5 May 2013

3 Poems by Maurice Oliver

Reinventing Poor Old Freud! 

The confidential patient notes had scribbling in the margins:
-Eden is just an alligator farm in Australia.
-sewing a zipper onto your knee cures head colds.
-fire insurance is nothing but a hot summer in the mid-30s.
-crickets unanimously prefer country music oldies.
-zeitgeist likes to be scrambled into Sunday omelets.
-public restroom are lousy at parallel parking.
-roadkill is just another word for dust bunnies.
-most bear growls have the ability to knock over trash cans.
-week-old hamburger meat is often an insomniac.
-a machine gun hates leaky diapers
-never expect a whiskey bottle to write intriguing poetry.


With Egret Feathers In My Apology

Dear Samantha,

Please forgive me for eating your marshmallow pie. Since
you’ve been gone, my shoehorn hides under the bed and
my yo-yo hangs limp down its string. Looking glass porters.
Walrus tusk raining. A cold wind that weeps onto my typo
without a handkerchief. And the sound of someone snoring.
I no longer believe in the power of court jesters as the ghost
of Christmas past insists on buttered bread. I only use
margarine and never wrap my fish in newspaper. But you
know all that. You know all there is to know about my heel
spurs and my talking horse in the barn. I guess I am trying
to say that my haystack is lonely. No blue lagoon. No palms
swaying in a tropical breeze. No peaches and pits. This is
how my linoleum floor feels. In small leather bound volumes,
with nothing to suck on but the Venetian blinds. A lid firmly
placed on the trashcan. Come unhandcuff me, and we can pile
leafy green vegetables onto our plates of carefree embroidery.


An O, Just Brighter 

I suppose you
could describe me as
usually resembling a honeycomb.
Most of the time I feel like the backseat of
a station-wagon missing the door handles. My
emotions hide in the glove compartment along with
the vehicle registration. I wear the attire of an impeccable
sailor with one raised leg at the fire hydrant. I can still slice lemons
while sleepwalking and I keep both morphemic feet in the hot
coals, using a mild bathroom cleaner. On a few occasions,
I bare witness to my massive Dorian Gray rated
PG-13, but most of the time I Bach on the
diving board for the Cracker Jack
prize, and the deafening
crash of ball to pins.
What else?
O yeah, I have
been known to rodeo
the small time clown in one
weekend and I encourage everyone to
end with a question mark too!


Bionote

After almost a decade of working as a freelance photographer in Europe, Maurice Oliver returned to America in 1990. Then, in 1995, he made a life-long dream reality by traveling around the world for eight months. But instead of taking pictures, he recorded the experience in a journal which eventually became poems. And so began his desire to be a poet. His poetry has appeared in numerous national and international publications and literary websites including Potomac Journal, Pebble Lake Review, Frigg Magazine, Dandelion Magazine, (Canada), Stride Magazine (UK), Cha Asian Literary Journal, (Hong Kong), Kritya (India), Blueprint Review, (Germany) and Arabesques Review (Algeria). His forth chapbook was One Remedy Is Travel (Origami Condom, 2007). He edits the literary ezine Eye Socket Journal at: http://eyesocketjournal.tumblr.com . He lives in Portland, OR, where he recurrently took an early retirement after working the past several years as a private tutor.

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