Three Poems by Sara Sowers
The Incredible Goodness Of The Puppy-Feeder
He was a slippery acolyte.
He wore white and gracefully
stood dead-still and performed
the liturgy. Dutifully.
On the street he fed puppies
he didn't even know.
Children like daisies
circled him, virtuously.
His arms were long as life
above their heads.
He was beyond good.
He was just good.
It was the way
he unfailingly uttered prayer
impeccably
that made god
question his game.
The Incredible Humaneness Of The Puppy-Eater
He too was a slippery acolyte.
Straight up, he fed puppies
to strangers at the corner
of Market and Dodge. He
bought a bright umbrella
to mark out his place of service.
He kneeled all day there.
Dawn to dusk he gathered
and distributed. Fed puppies
to strangers. Each day
it became less shocking
to passers-by. And soon
with more frequency
more people came to partake.
It was a raging success.
Until the people began to ask
for cats and birds, oxen, lemurs.
Circus Peanuts
*
We love the variety and glitz of a psychological breakdown.
We stop and watch. Say, Look at me.
We have no idea
where it has us pinned,
what to hold onto,
what grip is.
Still-life semblance
narrows sense until intuition is nil.
Urine we put back into us
will poison us, and eggs definitely
casts shadows on the legs of us.
We get stuck in the rime,
the what, who, to listen to.
We can't see out
of the dining hall
mind decorated
with operatic dessert tables
and all the opinionating its guests do.
Whose gigantic wedding is it?
Whose velvet Jesus blessing it?
Go downtown and
with hammers and chisels
locate something of certain worth.
There's got to be something left
to have some glyph of faith in.-
Livid lashes lap up out of fountains-
Make wishes for things in the quarter machine.
**
Today I'm not sure my name is Sara.
I don't respond when people call the name.
The day I broke down
in the middle of the mall
while writing Valentines to my family
I was sure
I would be taken away
like the man from Alabama
said would happen
after he told me to attend class
dressed as a dominatrix.
What a terrible bout of prophecy.
I lose track of things. Did I
come in here to use the telephone?
Are we to Texas yet? Are we out?
Maintain composure
while lightning is striking.
Maintain composure
while lightning is striking.
Maintain composure.
The reality
of blue discourse and displaced
anger from oneself to those you're surrounded by
is grossly misshapen. It's raining. No, really.
The lack of light in July and popsicles,
the sheer paucity of afternoon vivacity-pederasty
used to be acceptable and used to we could
brush our teeth with urine.-White fence
topped with hot cats and fine sculpted heads, nicotine
teeth sink into croissants dipped in peach jam.
Distinct smell of various sweat and sunscreens.
Like a box a personality breaks down.
Like a bomb.
Today in the rainy humidity
I smell everyone.
It's true and it's ugly,
a wasteland ringing.
***
A midget is tugging at my elbow,
begging for a lollipop, to know
if I've seen his porn flick.
I ignore him. I am alive
and tired with the weight
of an oral fixation complex and consumerist aggression,
A statistic, an -ism, I am. And this bothers me.
I am the heroic kid in the dream
about the mobster and the witch, the only
black & white dream
I ever had.
The possible truth
in symbolic implication
makes me nauseous, makes me nervous-
Circus peanuts
rain from the sky
and melt on impact
in a certain fantasy I have.
The land is ick in the muted orange stew of it.
The land is ick.
And that's why we should laugh at our difficulties
with reality.
The meaning of it must be something small.
Sara Sowers now lives in New Jersey, where nothing is sacred. She passes her time threatening delivery drivers and seeking Boston Baked Beans.