ReviewsArtProsePoetryContents





Poetry
Peter Magliocco



i advise my dark mistress



the temptations of zen
inserted in life's everyday context
exert the heart to stillness
& a reduced lizardly blood pressure
despite the traffic's promise of danger
we leap dodging trucks & Toyotas
with perfect detachment evident
on smiles stolen from Leonardo portraits
of Italian women thinking of immobility
we can't get enough of that invisible presence
lurking somewhere behind tinted windshields
threatening to debunk our bodies behind
all the moving asylums on wheels
I advise my dark mistress not to worry
but keep dancing through the lanes
of rush-hour dysfunction, it's all ballet
for mad people & pharmaceutical celebrants
our serenity overcomes with flowers & plants
swaying imperturbably around the racetrack
I nod at Anna Karenina's sanguine remains
pecked at by crows hunting roadkill
we run naked across Charon's unfinished freeway
dreaming we're dreaming these words
in the eternal immaterial flesh
transubstantial priests offer as free lunch
to life's stalled motorists



just like tom thumb's blues
(w/ discarded cleavage:)



waking up        the genetic therapies of zen
applied to the deformed mind,        or what's needed
in everyday life        to bridge the coffin,        give rise
to that night within you:
the felon walks among us,        shall we wear
the discarded bra of your soul
to the weltering dance
outside the station        where the Christ thief
denuded        &        washed
       your mind?



Peter Magliocco, 51, will have on-line poems in GNOME and Donald Ryburn's 4-9-1 site. Originally from So. Calif., he's lived in Las Vegas, NV for 15 years editing the lit-zine ART:MAG , and also doing freelance ink drawings. His latest poetry chapbook is THE MOVIE PRESIDENT from Pariah Press...


[Back]