3 Poems by Thomas Piekarski

Prohibitive Path

I deemed that path prohibitive,
the one where you must have
gun belts strapped across your chest,
prepared to murder your way
past illusory pearly gates.

And it didn’t seem to make sense
to adopt opaque philosophies
trying to climb the impossibly
tall and shaky scaffold
that reaches godhead.
                                

The Mix

Thrown into the mix the fixture
on the wall, the thing hung, visible.
Thrown out of the mix the phantasm
that enters dreams nightly, uninvited.
Thrown into the mix belief
there’s an urgency to be brief.
Thrown out of the mix attitude,
since it limits psychic amplitude.

                     
Bon Vivant

Oh so alone self-promoting unproclaimed
artiste bon vivant…

“I get where you’re at, but there has to be
some kind of life outside the fife,”
said the piebald piper, stung,
stunned by a cobra.

Called a poltroon, stranded,
shrinking on a pontoon 
out a vast, steady, open ocean,

who loves watching seabirds soar
in a perfectly clear powder blue
winter sky
this frigid afternoon…

Cockatoo perched in a cypress,

imperious, impervious, at attention,
staunch, stanching
inadmissible evidence with a vengeance.


Bionote

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His theater and restaurant reviews have been published in various newspapers, with poetry and interviews appearing in numerous national journals, among them Portland Review, Main Street Rag, Kestrel, Scarlet Literary Magazine, Cream City Review, Nimrod, Penny Ante Feud, New Plains Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Muse-an International Journal of Poetry, and Clockhouse Review. He has published a travel guide, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems. He lives in Marina, California.   tbaker16@yahoo.com