by Mike Andrelczyk
From The Clown Head Falconer
iguana on smooth aqua tile
tit-shaped cacti with red blooms in terra-cotta
pots at the bottom of an empty pool, the future
under a bal-chatri, a trick door, written
on icing on a marble birthday cake:
“what is the point of making art
when the world is cooked?”
every single pillow I buy
ends up fucking sucking
they’re either flat as a stack
of jai-alai fanzines or hard as the cement
blocks that form the dome
of a Santa Fe office building
shaped like a Medusa head
that vomits watermelons
what’s the secret?
when the final wipe-out laugh hits
what flies back to your hand is myth
but, anyway, where were we?
what’s your favorite Sun-Ra record?
🤡
Strange
Wyman Flower
and Curt Lickman
are two real people
they don’t know me
and I don’t know them
and yet here they are
in this poem
🤡
This is my Friend's Poem
I’m in Chelsea Square putting
putty in my hair, flag permanently at half mast,
a president who does the wipe-out laugh
the state bird is a ruffed grouse, fried
chicken and waffles at the Waffle
House graffiti in the ufo bathroom
stall says let’s get confused
y’all the blade runs through the green skin
of a cucumber in a burnt umber
cigarette-shaped shadow you
have to look beyond your hand
and then even beyond the other hand
🤡
Three Poems
I feel great!
I just read
three poems!
🤡
****
Mike Andrelczyk’s most recent poetry collections are “Tennis Leg” and “!!!”. His first novel, “Submarines” is coming out with Malarkey this summer.