TONGUING THE LINGO OF THE LIVING by Christopher Davis

1.  In My Imagination
 
Why can’t my sweet nothing, milky, meaningless, polyphonic,
swelling in my hindbrain, mediocre, motivated, polymorphic,
 
sound life like
a people think? 
 
Terrified and tired of this tendency to talk, tell all,
as if startled strangers could be my fictive family,
 
I prayed, psychological pastoral, silence,
for a vacuum sucks better than a wife.
 
In a “tea room” of the library,
in black magic marker, I
 
however, am, scribbling number, measure-
ments, vita, sniffing, on my bent finger…
 
 
2.  In My Body
 
is that ass?  In my imagination,
in my body, my unborn son,
 
squatting, aiming at the light, pressuring the lever,
winks through a clacking plastic View Master,
 
its white cardboard prayer wheel circling,
a slideshow, Man’s Brown Planet, flashing
 
past:  self-abuser, wrist-slitter, murderer,
brat, this ovoid seat is warm, remember,
 
shared, not shocking:  wow, pop, last night’s cocktails,
various Easter egg dyes, did create a dung rainbow:

inbred people, pass our sentence,
speak it:  innocence, irrelevance?