The Fallen Emperor | by Thomas Piekarski

With roaring tigers leaping at you

and all exits sealed like Egyptian tombs,

with gladiator gear on and emerald shield

you advance against the almighty godless

son of the son you wear as your own.

 

You ravage your way across arid deserts

and jungles swarming with anacondas

having at least been astute enough

to pack a nice lunch and favorite flute.

 

And then you take off like Superman

flying high above man-made cities,

glissandos quickening across equators.

 

And when the pretty minions of your

petty dominion turn pink, you die.

 

 

 

 

___

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry and interviews have appeared in Nimrod, Portland Review, Kestrel, Cream City Review, Poetry Salzburg, Boston Poetry Magazine, Gertrude, The Bacon Review, and many others.  He has published a travel guide, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems. He lives in Marina, California.

Topographical Masquerade—a poem by Thomas Piekarski

We were stretched out on the esplanade                                                          

                                                                                                 

                Fishing poles limp hot dogs

                The carp didn’t bite there

                So came night came the stars

                That bullied the sky so we left

                Hitching Highway 1 coons

                And possums trailing winds

                Majestic along headlight

                Beams that skimmed bait

                The indolent fish refused

Unquestionably unilateral over the top daredevil

                Window washer repels slings

                So high almost out of sight

                From skyscraper 45^th floor

                Underwear exposed puffs a Camel

                Swings precariously defiant

                With a smile slips loose drops

Relaxed with a bubbly he said she’d always wanted

                An erudite type not some bloke

                With porcupine skin you recognize

                Cucumber nose you’d easily mistake

                For a tsunami any time the waltz hit

                Rodeo Drive made the moment real

                Not overexposed the convivial father

                Call him paladin unfortunately

                Suffered a mild heart attack in

                An orange grove outside Riverside

                Non issue because life is limpid

                Knows elections don’t halt taxes

                Wife weaving a dress from satin thread

                Bakes cookies for the Brownie troop

On a good day he was certain to knock three times   

                                                                                                            

                Stovepipe hot and she would respond                              

                By beating a tin kettle the cat

               Texts cousin Sue sweet in Madagascar

                Ducting clear of pesky dust mites

                Thank god the glass slipper glistens

                In the sink we show great stealth

                Ascend dozens and dozens of steep

                Iron steps inside the capitol dome

                Wind way up to where pure

                Gold plated ball kisses nascent clouds

                Gaze way down the mall where

                River and Tower Bridge merge if only

                You could stop traffic on a dime now

                Arrest distance with nuclear theory

                Maybe Vanderbilt or Bach could

                Backstage Mata Hari lurks squats

                Senator you should do something

                Do something before the ice cube

                In my martini melts like a man

Stan and Ollie trailed team Chevy Chase three

                To nothing in the bottom of the ninth

                When it began to drizzle pin pricks

                We packed bananas and Pepsi cans

                Hightailed out of Frisco on the next

                Bus and buzzed into chilly Berkeley

                Like a pair of slightly juiced dolphins

                We both stomped jovially

                Up Shattock toward the Civic Center

                To find a Miloz selected someplace

                Anyplace remaindered so crazed

                At last fruition bubbled to the rim

And that was a photo to be relished while eating

                A Po Boy at the Amtrack terminal

                Jawdropping buns and jugs sat

                No man’s land across from me

                Distanced yet here a daisy showed

                There a unicorn stunning immense

                Glissandos left on the hothouse steps

                Along with nine empty milk bottles

                I swear Ted sure did cry when they

                Took his toy monkey away from him                     

                Easter was early or anyhow it seemed                                  

                With so much snow all around                                            

                But difficult to catch a flake on your

                Tongue to salvage sanity or soul

We absolutely did not want to be discovered curled

                Like a couple of snails copulating

                At the foot of Mount Ranier given

                Beautiful as Aspen is Owens Valley

                Some circumstances I would avoid

                Outright if possible not patronize

                The fashionable politics of bullets

                Kids favor these days over the pen

                Isolated from good poems perfect

                Eliot masterful Gauguin

                Messianic howl over the moon

                Turned sienna before my eyes

                In a symphony the ages descry

Ear muffs ipods cell phones phonograph afoot

                We watched Roy Rogers kick up spurs

                 Hop onto Trigger and head out for

                 Wonderland so that it would become

                 Essentially unnecessary to ask why

                 The chicken steadfastly refused to set

                 Foot on the road and why it elected

                 Not to lift its shirt and expose its navel

____

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry and interviews have appeared in Nimrod, Portland Review, Kestrel, Cream City Review, Poetry Salzburg, Boston Poetry Magazine, Gertrude, The Bacon Review, and many others.  He has published a travel guide, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems. He lives in Marina, California.

Antimagic— a poem by Thomas Piekarski

There is no solace in the lighted crevices

That stow away along the interstate.

Their mighty embers about to be trounced

By trucks signal pyric triumph.

The paean you hear is a battered stump

Expediting the path of a living shadow

That cuts your soul into little embryos.

The wheel uninvented. Thus the truckers

Must thump along with flattened purpose.

Oh look under the rock not so distant;

There your fortitude is born

In rocks fated to be formed.

And this isn’t some magician’s hoisting

A lit wand despite wails of warriors.

Adamantine are the stars. We view them

Mysteriously as though we’re unaware

That we are them, not by happenstance

But by virtue of a cosmic brotherhood

That breathes at once violet and then

Scarlet, magenta. When standing tall,

Back erect and looking straight up,

One fathoms its omniscience.

“All aboard the Thunderbird that flashes,

Stripping the varnish off green clouds.”

Lulu Bonafice rummaged through

The antique dresser drawer.

She found there only one nylon

And a pair of woolen socks

With which to wind

The grandfather clock.

The clock stuck at ten twenty-nine

For a total of seventeen years.

Or so her diary attests.

She well remembers depositing the check,

It happened tomorrow, a testament

To her autonomy amongst

Reprehensible forces at large.

  

Sorrow superannuated only when

Boiled over into a sponsoring vat,

To become soaring spore, astray

In the dawn’s unsteady melee.

Lulu wasn’t pandering. It’s merely a case

Where dead understanding pilfers,

And nothing can so much as pause it.

She remembered well depositing the check

As though it were tomorrow.

“Her immeasurable

Adorableness

Failed to stanch

The Prussian waifs’

Swarming cavalcade.

Like Joan of Arc

Steady in her ways

She rode astride

A ruby camel.”

Watch as poor Mr. Applebaum

Squeezes a cyanide pill

Between gilded molars.

Yet she survived. The sun survived.

The day went south as was its wont.

But time had evaporated,

Its dissipating spray

Like leaping antelopes

Swept her hair.

And nothing, nothing at all

Could contest that frenzied

Animation.

___

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.