Minding the Trickster

        He / she makes me angry -- this fellow / gal and how
        everyone winks an eye, turns his / her butt.
        Tongues “tsse, tsse -- too bad.”  Grins, the go-ahead
        to turn everything around, no matter that the elevator tilts
        sideways and we’re pelted with doo-doo pooping through
        a shaft (open, thanks to Legba, renegade, who never leaves
        off punishing his mother, Mawu).
                Don’t call me “stick-in-the-mud”
                for wanting a safe ride.
                My jacket sloshed -- and who’s to pay?

        Believe me, I understand “play.”  Applaud the child prodigy
        of theft.  Of course, it was a game.  Apollo, God of Sober
        Thought, called off his grudge, won over by the lyre.
        Poor tortoise.  Robbed of his carapace, he was anyone’s
        quick meal, and Coyote -- the same who sends his anus out
        to hunt and farts between his teeth -- stumbled into turtle
        meat.   So much for turtle holding up the world.
                I tell you we are falling,
                falling in whatever . . . worse than
                the beginning.  Hermes in every mall.

        Our benefactors?  Forget it.  Prometheus, misguided fool . . .
        Recall “the road to sin is paved with good intentions.”
        Our hero began that trip.  Maybe Zeus knew better
        than to give his children matches, land mines, and the whole
        shebang.  That blustering lecher knew the blazing groin,
        how politicians ejaculate loaded missiles
        to hide ballistic lust.

        Now I like a laugh like anyone -- I just don’t get the joke.
        Most tricks make me sick.  Jael nailing the tent peg
        into Sisera’s head -- funny to Yahweh?    Save me
        from such gods.  For divine comedy, turn elsewhere.  Maybe
        Isis -- vagina panting to an absent penis.   Pure Gothic,
        Osiris resurrected, all except for that.    As for Circe
        changing Odysseus’ men to pigs?  Pure metaphor!

        Trickster thrives on muck to get ahead.  Clap, clap!
        Wakdjunkaga takes his bow after gorging on -- say, blood-
        red wine.  Lives better than my uncle, sign-painter, who
        couldn’t read signs, worked over-time.  Wife . . .  Not one child
        with his DNA.  Died young.   “Too honest for his own good,”
        Dad said, Dad who wore one suit for years and spotless.
                My mother specialized in cleanliness
                and shame, scrubbed my hair with tar
                soap.  “Don’t trust or try.  Seeds fail.”

        Schlemiel, I flounder on piano keys, stay fixed
        on rims of bottles, jars, I cannot turn.
        Eyes fasten on a donkey’s tail not there.
        Blindfolded naturally.   Never any prize.
        Couldn’t snatch it no matter.   Clumsy, scared of
        rules and soft for tears.  Everyone pretends he / she
        entitled.  Everyone has something up that sleeve.
                I wear my father’s suit, cuffs frayed.  My scalp
                prickles -- too dry.    I wait for seed leaves,
                for Krishna and the Gopis.

                     Hermes, sweet child, are you listening?

 

                                        -- Marilyn Jurich

             Twenty-two to Trick on The Tongue

 

    1.      Chaste rose constrained in ribboned swirls
        till petaled tongues swell, unfurl
                 seducient

    2.  I see young girls in millennial get-ups
        tight to thigh with tripping mid-driffs
           in their voyeurtogs (or skinnydips)

    3.  Nap of towel rubs comfy rough
        sopping up drips, caressing tough
             carubulous to skin and hair

    4.  Ice-cream dribble round a baby’s mouth
        is funny, runny, never uncouth
                     Call it clowngoo

    5.   A cat that wriggles on its back
        with whisking tail and raised stomach
                   awaits your ticklydoodles

    6.  For how the chipmunk disappears
        he has no rivals and no peers
                 moving segreteasmo

    7.  The kinds of words that patronize
        dwindle you to lilliputian size
                 consliver

    8.  A visitor who has overstayed
        made you confidante and maid
                 bortyrannosoures

    9.  She unwraps her mints for the violin cadenza
        rattles her program to Shakespearean stanza
                   An absolute disdrattar

    10. Those overcome with mortality
        who translate days to fatality
             follow pestitheology

    11. A sneeze you stifle in a public hall
        an itch you keep or a cough you stall
                causes manic-repression
    12. Inhale the gas from a crowded highway
        Cough, blow out, wave fumes goodbye-way
                    Still you are oghast

    13. In the allegretto of “The Pastoral Symphony”
        Sunlight reappears as devout epiphany
                         gaillumina

    14. The waitress who does more than “wait”--
                adapts and substitutes, intimates
                 is a food Samaritan

    15. Who cares for his poems?  He doesn’t care
        The title of Poet is what he counts dear
               All his poems composed in chèr-moilettes

    16. Love, a word extinct today--”commitment,”
        “sex,” “relationship,” no sentiment, content
                  Revive the antiquated term:
      L(lustrare) O(opulentus) V(voluntas) E(excellere)

    17. Swallow the svelteness of lush, ripe melon,
        the rising gladness and liquidy welcome
                 Such pleiaditude!

    18. “Your clone is ready,” the technician states.
        “Shall I mail her, or will you wait?”
                 Clones sent anthrofax

    19. Night sounds rouse to shivery fear
        eerie presences panting near--
              “Ghoultap, ghoultap” in the dark.
    20. That moment you tremble before the closed door. . .
        What to accept?   What ignore?
            Bluebeardian dilemma!

    21. Our purple tulips long since dead
        bronze leaves drape over one stigma head
             Sad raithes of flowers

    22. She counts my change, “Have a good day.”
        “Take care,” he says when I’m on my way.
           What do you call these parting phrases--
            rose petals or prickly razors?
           
             HERE-----------take part,  join the play.