More Poetry by Brian Stefans

THE JOURNALIST

“My body is a roulettte wheel, and I am betting on red.”

-- Aragon

One man reported that his computer “appeared to have been hacked by a redhead, and she sang to herself while doing it.”

Another conveyed his position on recent developments in Van Halen:

he was an “anti-Samite.”

I want to be immune again.

*

He paws his own body.

This is the violence of wisdom.

*

But like we don’t remember the day we were born, no one ever thinks about the first letter of a sentence with fondness.

*

Yap yap yap yap yap – ambient poetics.

MIDAS EARS

“We” have found roses

cheaper than cigarettes.

(Putting a square patch on your shoulder to kill an instinct.)

Perhaps I will stay here, away from your writing

divided between the rout of Pollocks

and What’s Said to the Poet About Flowers.

*

I stop,

and wave.

Then punk happened.

VERY LIGHT AND SWEET

I am working on a painting. I don’t want to seem unhealthy to you. Every day the painting grows taller; I am smoking a lot less now. I can barely see anything else, and the only sound is the cream-colored traffic outside. Now, was that thinking?

I am expecting your phone call. It grows on me, this feeling of love and dread. I could return to the painting, of course; of that, I have to remind myself. Because the painting is a lot of work, I am reminded that I often feel tired in certain situations. Maybe not this one, but other times. Perhaps also this one, but were that to be the case I wouldn’t have to be “reminded” of anything. But reminded I am, and have forgotten that you are about to call.

The painting depicts... well, it is gray. It has a red ellipse somewhere in the lower left-hand corner, like the spot on Jupiter. I think a bit of that spot on Jupiter, how I would describe it — the painting, I mean — were there to have been no spot on Jupiter. It’s so exhausting to be original.

I own a televisions set, too. It is dark right now, because it is not on. I can’t paint with these sorts of distractions, though know others can, and do; and even want to, that’s part of the “life.” Cultured distractions. The things of the world. But as my mind is on that spot on Jupiter, which, I suppose, they don’t show frequently on TV, I rarely have the set on when painting. It would be too – too distracting. And as I am trying not to think of your call, and trying to think of my painting, probably an easy thing to do (when you think about it), nonetheless the television is off, keeping the “things of the world” and the “life” at bay. This is a cozy situation. But, indeed, it makes me nervous.

I’d like to be healthy. But, now, I have these sores in my mouth. They are purplish, though you can‘t really see them, as they are inside the mouth. Not on the lips, or on the skin, but inside. Imagine them, then.

When I am done with this painting, I will call you at once to remind you about it, and about them, and me.