Two Poems by (the) David Smith

IF I HAD A CLIT

after Kathy Acker & William Carlos Williams

If I had a clit,
I would probably pierce it.
Hell, I would probably pierce it twice,
one for the button and one for the hood,
the metal pearls beating against each other,
with a Morse Code not known since Eden.

I would buy a vintage motorcycle,
a big one, like a Triumph Thunderbird
& ride it around town all day,
in all kinds of weather,
even the most violent,
guaranteeing lightening orgasms,
thunderous satisfaction.

If I had a clit,
I would share it with everyone.

It would feel good to me.
It would feel good
to me. It would feel
good to me.

_____________________

WHY I LOVED WORKING AT DISNEYLAND
After Emily Dickinson

Because every evening at the end of his shift,
Goofy would glide razor cool
into the employee locker room,
an Aston Martin rolling to a magnificent stop,
twist-off his head
& with great ceremony
light-up a Marlboro,
exhaling a garden of clean blue smoke;
like a pharaoh exercising bright logic,
contemplating the history of sin
on the Tokyo subway,
as silent as a mirror
dwelling in possibility.

© d.smith, 2010

Two Poems by David Smith

BUT SHE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A JEWISH ACCENT

Flying home on the red-eye
pre-Sabbath, the end-stage
of a dry-eyed family funeral
for an old girl-friend,
stinging from the rabbinic ballistics,
the ancient ritual, all mournful chants,
still lips and low guttural moans,
not one single moment of lightness or joy,
a true orthodox affair.

A Sandra Bullock movie
plays on the in-flight monitor.
I wave-off the attendant’s offer
to buy a set of tinny ear buds for $7.00,
& watch the film in silence,
it is much more enjoyable that way.

During the scene where Sandra
is lying on her death-bed
from the King Kong
of ovarian cancers
(I think)
a half-smoked Winston
resting between her lips,
abandoned in her delicate nature,
I weep more than a child,
more than all of Rimbaud’s
children of the entire world.

___________

CULTIVATION BY RADIOACTIVITY
After Tetsumi Kudo and Pablo Picasso

Watching you sleep, face turned toward the sun,
your body wrapped in several fantastic angles,
splayed-out across the vastness of this huge bed
in the best hotel room of a sacred foreign city,
looking for all the world
like the kind of tree
I might encounter in a dream.

You are a beautiful refuge,
Ana Mandara,
like the history of sin
on the Tokyo subway,
like the joy
of winter flowers,
throwing question
to my night-dark world view
of every man for himself
and god against all.

I reach over,
flick one of Lear’s gilded flies
off your golden shoulder.
Sigh.
In my life
you did things first,
while those who may follow
will do things pretty.

© d.smith, 2010