Junkyard Quotes 11-20

Junkyard Quotes (second half)

11) “I hate that cancer is a ‘fight’… but infertility is a ‘loss’ (postsecret)
12) “I can speak Canadian: Moose Moose Hockey Syrup Moose Moose”
13) transparent irises under inky, shallow secrets.
14) lesbians don’t scissor they sexy time wiggle
15) on this bar stool I can’t stay so I take my frown to a faraway town
16) I will live my life as a lobster man’s wife he will take care of me and smell like the sea
17) summer came like cinnamon so sweet
18) the circus is falling down on its knees
19) tread water and keep your head above the waves
20) a brain that felt like pancake batter

Workshops 1-3

Workshop1
“The Yellow Symposium’s Muse”

Plays cold and jams pearls
Into a hollow wooden womb with a plastic
Crimson and gold inlay of feasting
Hummingbirds to protect the
Scraping strums of metallic
Chords that blistered the fingers
Who knew so well that
Canary whose rainy murder would relentlessly
Etch and callous inspiration into
Tantalizing silent screams
Rhythmically clotting,
Begging him to share some whiskey or wine
and confess the yellow symposium’s muse.



Workshop 2
“The Narwhal’s Starfish”

He found it on the back of his hammerhead’s
impregnated blue-eyed Mako. She surrendered
it as a donation of October.
He brought it to its native shore and
persistently protected by puncturing
every predator. Then emerged the hybrid carnivore
and was adopted by the mighty mammals.
The narwhal forgot the starfish on the strange foreign
sands of the Gulf. It patiently lingered, awaiting
the mysterious comfort of its confident companion
to return with lionfish-like songs of sanguinity.
After half a decade of enduring strange sand and sunny
circumstances, the starfish dried and starved.
Its carcass now resides with the other foreigners
strung to clink in the wind next to the
city specific shot glasses.



Workshop 3
“Dissection”

Five years of regular research and persistent planning,
exploring and excavating exact environments,
anticipating that fully equipped harpoon on the
lobsterman’s Carina, to capture that damn
narwhal, the one who torments and punctures,
building and destroying natural habitats
engendering headaches with its constant
singing and bellowing,
begging to be severed wide open
and vulnerable, exposing his walloping
core, pleading to have his nuclear heart
surveyed and scrutinized for signs of malfunction.

Improv 51 (“Ape” Edson)

“Dad is Damn Sick of Eating Mom’s Cookies”

Mother bakes his favorite Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip
every third Sunday before his bro-time
poker.

Father has exclaimed Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip is no longer
his favorite sweet. He prefers Snickerdoodle.

Mother’s shade of lipstick has progressed from a coral to
bright open-fleshed red. Her perfume from honeyed sugar to
a sensual musk. 

Father’s poker games
have started to run later than usual after Mother has already
scrubbed away her potent spices and facial façade and then has
gone to bed.

Mother utters behind her pristine veneers a hiss of affections and
selfish poker puns.

Improv 50 (“Day Job and Night Job” Hudgins)

“Practice Practicality”

Get a job.

I have a job.

It doesn’t pay enough.
Get another job.

I have a job.
And I go to school full time.

You can get another job.
One that pays more.
And gives you more hours.

More hours away from creating
artwork and writing?

Yes, you will have plenty of time
to do those things when you
graduate and
get a big girl job.

Respect your elders.
They are wise.
They know what’s best for you
and your financial future.  

Improv 49 (“You, Doctor Martin” Sexton)

“Hypochondriac Queen”

She’s never had a pancake, a slice of pizza, or an apple.
She’s sixteen and has approximately twenty-three seizures a day,
where she can only sit, paralyzed, and blankly stare directly in front of her.
He had to save her by moving in, and attending all of her MRI’s, heart exams,
and brain assessments.
He had been extracted like an eagle egg knocked from the nest
by a snake, who only wanted to suck it dry and leave the shell.

Then she was immediately pregnant.
He requested evidence.
Ten minutes later she miscarried.
He decided to carry his vertebral casing away from her regal rubbish. 

Improv 48 (“Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg” Hugo)

“’Hatred of The Various Grays’”

Gray and Beige,
Beige and Gray,
Bare naked and new cubicles
Hallways of prisons and schools
These are not tints,
These are somber neutrals
Meant as a primer for post-mistakes
They are not calm and cool paint swatches
That is for the Monet’s Lilies and Aqua Breezes
They are not stimulating or motivating
Like Lantanas or Pumpkin Toast
If you’re going to go flat and gray,
or bland and beige
adding a smudge of hue will level it up
to a chromatic gray, that expresses
close to something rather than nothing. 

Improv 47 (“Clear Night” C. Wright)

“’Bird Hush and Bird Song’”

Green emerald glazed hands
welded for giving and getting
displayed on the trunk of the palm
holds seedling snacks for those singing
twitchy necked definitions of freedom.

He hung the slip-casted weapons to
snooze the crude cheeping at dawn and
gun-down that provoking raucous.

Now, only the rooster crows, but
his internal clock is armed for
Eastern Standard Time.

Improv 46 (“The Skokie Theater” Hirsch)

“Chicago is Too Cold for Change?”

I’ve pranced incessantly back and forth with the same faunae of the Eastern South for a decade and a half. A revolution is the light at the end of the tunnel. They could never stomach such a shift in communal scenery. Formerly, my capability to expand prospects was arrested by cowardly con-artists, those inhibited cubs who will soon be dominated by their youngers stripped of their women and banished from the Pridelands. Chicago holds a lot of cold change for skilled beggers, but can I be choosey and settle for the comfort of the dry desert dirt?

Improv 45 (“Explaining an Affinity for Bats” Stallings)

“MegaBat and Pueo (the Barn Owl and the Fruit Bat)”

A tail-less meerkat, cocooned in his own embrace
Upside down, patiently looming for his wise spotted-breast
side-kick to return with the nightbeat and some avocado.
“They say you need to compromise the mango trees”
She confessed.
“I will not be vanquished by puny buzzballs”
He persisted.
She began to pluck away chromatic plume after plume
from her regal form.
He frantically flapped and produced mousey ‘Eeks!’ to
obstruct her horrid habit.
She darted towards the hive, he resumed to his cocoon
in triumph. She never sonically announced her plot
and gorged away his stunned expression. 

Improv 44 (“Daddy” Plath)

“Daddy’s Achoo”

A virgin to the pollen of Georgia
called to tell me I had an Easter basket in route
to check the front door to see if it had arrived
my first day of Spring Break
best surprise to see your Daddy deliver candy
from across the country and then some Pacific away
rollercoaster parks are great for memories
unless you count Daddy sneeze eleven times
in a row in the rental car in the parking lot
we left early
My undergraduate senior exhibition is planned to
display in April.
A basket of dust masks and organic antihistamines
will make for a savoring souvenir.

Improv 43 (“The Artist as Lefthander” Dunn)

“’When America Gives Back Its Images’”

McDonalds is Mayhem. Pedestrian “lovin’ it” and
Monopolized shopping depots.
America should give it back.
Return all the conforming clichés and conventional
Conveniences. When was the last time someone
Physically labored for their conquests? Experienced notions of
Reward other than virtually?
America should give back jobs.
Return parents to be heeded and respected as role models,
Not names and fixed faces that the chances of holding
Conversation with are slim to none like their bodies and morals.
When did the schools become a center for judgment and abuse?
Hasn’t that always been the occupation of the church?
America should give it back to individuals’ beliefs. 

Improv 42 (“To Market” Nelson)

“The Stroll of Streams”

All of us must be removed the icy, pale peoples’ property.
We are not dark enough to stay and work and live.
They say our land is ‘sovereign’ and sacred. That it
Holds so many resources we will never understand how to
Utilize properly. They are unknowing Agidoda says and
Edoda will strike back against their misuse of our home.
I pray the river will flood and storms will
Destroy in progress construction.
I pray the birds and wildcats will unite and attack
Bringing the eyes of these men’s young to their own young to
Feast and use their hair to build shelters and nests.
I prayed first for us to share our properties, supplies, and
Above all, knowledge. Now I pray nothing but
Fatal sickness and flaring fires. 

Improv 41 (“Salmon” Graham)

“Yellow Hawaiian Tang”

Also referred to as a Sail or a Surgeon:
The denotative salty tank companion
Can be snorkeled with in vast schools
In open bays with heavy volumes of freedom
They nourish on the flesh of their chums
And without sufficient photosynthetics
Will resort to belligerent behavior
Personal experience will express that
These white-butt-spotted flattened bananas,
Much like the modest full-time students,
Fancy the delicacy of Ramen in the wild.

Improv 40 (“The Pardon” Wilbur)

“Fredrick The Fly”

On my back porch, where my
Mother and I bond while inhaling toxic tar
The lit fan above has a pet gnat
The family has entitled Fredrick the Fly.

He appeared over Summer and
Loops rounds hovering on the finned blade
When tired of rotating for hours on end.
The mosquitos’ citronella never kept him at bay.

His girlfriend Francesca appeared in mating
Season, before the first frost
The cold spell and winds must have drove them
away, for they have long been departed. 

Improv 39 (“Japan” Collins)

“Tylin Cayra’s Lily”

Skinny White Bitches
The Liger Sasqatch chases
Gnawed hollow marrows 

Improv 38 (“Nonessential Equipment” Dubrow)

“Garrett’s Letters”

My little devil-dog in training
taller than me and when
he graduates I won’t be able
to drunkenly attack with tickles and punches

No one yells for Mom to turn off the whining
about beer and lost love in the car anymore

We read every letter aloud
at first he shared his regrets, his apologies
for leaving us for his pathological first love but

He has followed his dream, his passion
to protect our country and follow Pop’s footsteps

As each letter arrives there is more writing
so small Mom needs her nonessential glasses
and more apparent enthusiastic anticipation
for violent, rigorous plans in his schedule.

The exhausting games are becoming
strength and entertainment.

Nothing but impressive honor has filled
my veins for sharing his blood. 

Improv 37 (“The Dancing” Stern)

“Post-War”

Playing Scrabble on the kitchen table under the hand-sewn drapes adorned with fruits, framed in yellow.
On the red tablecloth older than Grandma’s eldest sister, so as not to scratch the already scuffed wood.
Challenge after challenge from The Lawyer, with the nose of an Italian, sipping, slurping Pepsi.
The Lawyer, a retired Marine, endured the war in Vietnam, and Korea. All that cooking must have been Traumatizing.
With Christmas creeping, and my brother with a Gun-Ho aim to enlist his passionate existence to our Proud U.S. of A.
I inquired for contribution of mementos or materials to share. “You’re brother wants to be a Marine”
“Yes, he’s been wanting to follow in my Grandfather’s footsteps for years”
“You better talk him out of it unless you want him to die”
My Grandmother has been married to The Lawyer, uncouth and monotone
Rubbing her calloused, since before I was born. My father and his brother did not attend their union of settle, not love. He will never have the privilege to be my Grandfather.
Both on paper are classified as Marines, only one deserves
Recognition.  

Improv 36 (“One Art” Bishop)

“‘The Art of Losing Isn’t Hard to Master’”

Each month I get faster with plaster
pouring and knocking bubbles out
like the sins of a pastor
yellow is the content for my watercolor
tigerlily grid that should have been aster
they weren’t opaquely rich enough
critique was a disaster
art history doodles to distract myself
from studying the origin of pilasters
too late when I realized my collaged spiral
staircase base could have some casters
my works’ conceptual reputation
suffers from hazy intellectual raster   

Improv 35 (“Robin Redbreast” Kunitz)

“Romeo and Juliet, One Black One Blue”

During my morning routine of relief
Dueling flocks chirped sacrilege
Or searching for their kin’s perfidy
Hiding their  revolutionary ardor
The short shrills were too close to be
Outside the wood panels
That lacked insulation
Hitchcock’s Birds overwhelmed
My mind’s cinematic creations
Caitlin opened the fan door
Meant for dispelling the foul and
Bereaved the broadcast of stiff birds
We placed them in a stereo box
Wrapped with a pink ribbon and
Buried them behind the visual arts building
Three feet under red Georgia clay
Interrupted with the roots of Marci’s stump

Improv 34 (“Little Oscar” Dybek)

“Preservatives From Concentrate”

‘My bologna has a first name’
It’s N-A-S-T-Y
‘My bologna has a second name’
It’s Flattened Ha-aht Dogs
Usually last names are based upon
places of origin.
Where do these rubbery pale purple
meats come from? Bill Nye showed
me a meat locker once. Pigs and cows
red and white insides in suspension
like oversized fish guts on hooks.
Vegetarian for two days until
chicken sandwiches at lunch were served.
Red-meat is rare
apart of my diet. The ugly birds
startling and skittish are my
meats of choice that shred not tear
without bubbles that sponge to my tongue.

Improv 33 (“Dead Horse” Lux)

“Beans and Weenies”

A cheap and filling course for a family of six.
Noodles and butter works just as well with
lots of pepper.
Poor Mufasa. Cooped up in the Chevy Astro
for two weeks, from hotel to hotel on our
transferring voyage across the country.
My stepfather gave him the freedom of
only returning to our new blue house for
food and shelter. When on New Year’s Eve
The beginning of the last of the 20^th century,
he returned, gashed cheek and half face
missing fur, limp, begging for revival.
I begged my parents not to take me from him
leave him cold and alone in the tiled bathroom
yellowed from Mom’s cigarettes
so they could go drink until they didn’t make
sense even to my elementary ears.
When we returned, my stepfather wouldn’t
let me see him. Mom cried and said Daddy
will know what to do. None of us know
even now where he takes their fluffy carcasses.
I wrote Mufasa a letter on an orange matching
balloon with sharpie and let it go in the backyard.
I don’t remember if we had beans and weenies
or buttery noodles with pepper though I remember
I played with my Christmas present book of
optical illusions.

Improv 32 (“The Harlem Dancer” McKay)

“Dangly Shaky Gold”

On shimmery golden abs, tight with those V lines for holding.
Her golden shoes, she said were from Ebay, must have made her
A whole foot and a half taller.
Strappy in all the right places, she never stumbled.
A circle of a crowd had gathered around her hips
Awe struck by her luxurious alleviation of
Gravity owning momentum in every physical manner possible.
Her foundation nude lips never quivered,
Never broke,
Every elegant effort never traveled facial expressions.
When she bent to grab her robe, I saw the purple gold on
Her back thigh.
I pray she just relished for the BDSM lifestyle and not
dictated by dominance. 

Improv 31 (“Blood” Nye)

“A Respected Lady”

A respected lady
Never wears overalls. Those are for farm boys.
A respected lady
Never cusses. Unless she’s alone in her car ‘driving faster than her guardian angels can fly.’
A respected lady
Never tattoos her pure skin. Only trashy girls and worthless boys get tattoos.
A respected lady
Never drinks more than one glass of wine at dinner. Why would you want to?
A respected lady
Never settles for a husband. Unless he’s a lawyer and ex-Marine chef asshole.
A respected lady
Never lives with someone of the opposite sex unless they are married.
A respected lady
Never eats pizza with her hands. Always cut with fork and knife in proper manner.
A respected lady
Always sucks it in when she’s trying on dresses for her father’s wedding. 

Improv 30 (“Amaryllis” Voigt)

“Pineapple and/or Plumeria Farming”

I’d love to be the daughter of a plumeria farmer.
Leaving my windows open all night and day so the
floral fumes could overwhelm my clothes and bedding.
A pineapple farming father wouldn’t be too bad either.
Raw tongues and palates from saccharine sour triangular
prisms. Imagine the bacon sharing a skillet with some
yellow sweetness. I don’t even like bacon. My father
accidentally farmed some pineapple back then. He cut
one up and threw the top in the backyard and as it began
to sprout he watered it, and it flourished into a
beautiful mini spiked spud, tangier but still sweet.

Improv 29 (“Cherrylog Road” Dickey)

“Intakes and Oil Changes”

Chip drove a ’87 mustang
built everything but the body basically
did oil changes in less than an hour
filter and all
Chip is short and lived in a trailer
with his aunt and uncle and their mixed
children and pitbull whose chew toy
was what used to be a four-wheeler
tire. She had a pink collar and her name
was Lady. Definitely not a spaghetti
sucking spaniel.
He painted my ex’s 300Z turbo
with black spray-paint and the hood pins held
up until someone stole them or
flew out while on 400. The original rusty
red began to show after the cheap solution
chipped away.

Improv 28 (“Dream Song #14” Berryman)

“Only My Dreams Don’t Bore Me”

Insomniac snooze pushing Spanish Serenades
away and vivid surrealism behind my REM
shimmying eyelashes. Playing solitaire with
His name on the back of each card in Groovy
Scooby Doo font. Pink, my savior, from the tsunami overcoming
the rock wall at the bay. My mom showing me
the same reoccurring house full of monsters
and fears in each House on Haunted Hill
Room. Each colorful and from various
perspectives. Each a subconscious and poor
excuse for tardiness.  If they were DVDs
I’d start my own University. 

Improv 27 (“Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump” Bottoms)

“Hunting Ghosts Throughout All of Georgia”

With a blunt, Dean and Baxter decided I should research
the most haunted spots in Georgia and plug them in my GPS.
The worst was that railroad in the middle of an assumed
neighborhood with three-stories up on hills, a mile and a half
apart from each, disguised by no streetlights and shadows of
ominous branches. Our group found the abandoned tracks
that I lit with my every second trigger pictures and flash.
Dean, the leader, got caught and cut up by some thorny
vines hanging low in the tree. A flashlight showed a six-foot
drop off hole in the railroad where he would have fallen.
I was left as the caboose and heard leaves cracking behind me.
I grabbed Baxter and he shook me off. We got back in my car
and he said he didn’t want to freak me out, but he heard
the crunching. My pictures revealed a dull flame in the distance
only two frames worth of orange light. 

Improv 26 (“Translations” Stone)

“Beaches and Streets”

Drive eight hours with a halfway break at the mall
halfway across the island with your permit
and you will be closest to the best behind the wheel
of your peers in your grade level.
Practicing pronunciation of the Hawaiian dialect for
Anaehoomalu off of Kahapapa, is sung AnAY Who Ma
LOOOOOOO
and King Kamehameha Highway becomes King
Ka may ha may ha may ha may ha may ha
But Kealekekua is the best place of all
with wild dolphins and kayaks
and snorkeling without the snorkel
as a mermaid through grottos and along coral

Improv 25 (“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” Rich)

“Aunt Vicki Lynn’s Dragonflies”

She likes to talk and sing to her trees
because delight puts them at ease
Fairies live in their trunks and play
with the dragonflies every seasons’ day
Her only concern is for those she adores
everything living but never chores.

Improv 24 (“Climbing the Streets of Worcester, Mass.” Harjo)

“Three Crows and a Horn”

Three shadows the size of a housecat wobbling their
heads down the street barking about who lost
the horn they used to share. One would scratch their beak
on the brass mouthpiece. One would dance on the button
knobs and the smallest would wave his wing over the
backward funnel back and forth.
There’s no horn, so now they just squabble in that sycamore
scaring the superstitious neighbors. 

Improv 23 (“A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” Raine)

“Goldie Won’t Move”

They abducted me from my incest pool of my floating ancestors
and the rectangular shining that lit us twenty-four hours each day.

The short ones were lifted by the taller to bang with their worm
attached squares. We learned to ignore those atomic echoes.

Now I am alone, in a circle, with nothing but a dark place to hide
in that skull with the smelly plant and too many rainbow points

At the bottom where I hope to be, too soon, on my side
or upside down, like my ancestors who turned white transparent. 

Improv 22 (“Broadway” Doty)

“Rodeo Dr., City of Angels”

Palm trees and concrete with black spots from decades of spit or chewed gum
                Probably with another vomit ingredient adorning the pink stars
                                with names of the use-to-be’s or shouldn't be’s

The closest taste of European shop streets America will get on the
                West Coast with their brownish green sea water so cold and not
                                so salty anymore like it used to be in those Polaroids.

Those blondes with their existential crises on which mascara to wear to
                that dinner party that reminds us of prom and probably costs
                                just as much for one semester at the University.

Such a shabby shame that the city where dreams come true would come
                to this piece of paradise with Mexican Mafias and those with
                                talent are out shined by auto-tuned breasts. 

Improv 21 (“First Practice” Gildner)

“Mental Materialism”

Soap is made from glycerin, not Bush’s ballad
from the hazardous dumpsters at the
liposuction clinic. Ikea and single serving doppelgangers,
schizophrenic and clever. Blood and fucking
but no periods. Before Mayhem and after
the penguin power animal turned into Ms.
Singer who stole his touring support groups
to cure his insomnia.
The first rule is you’re not supposed to talk about it.

Improv 20 (“Father’s Bedroom” Lowell)

"Dad's Pets"

When I was too young to remember
my room as a toddler, there was a python
named Spike who ate the rats and mice I named
in the brown paper bag Jerry, whom were only
acquaintances for my lap in the car ride home.

A salt water tank in the hallway with a lion
fish and live coral. Mom says they found a
baby octopus when they went surfing one day
with my uncle and put him in that tank.
It inked. Everything died.

My stepmom gave him a father’s day gift
of two baby chameleons we killed one of them
for not Google-ing enough and set the other one
free. The feral felines probably got to him. 

Improv 19 (“What is Worth Knowing?” Bhatt)

“Van Gogh’s Ear”

has as many conspiracy theories
as the unicorns. Did he cut it off and place it
in his lover’s limp palm, then tie it closed with
a satin ribbon? Did he rip it off rather than
his hair in a frantic panic? Did he lose it
in a sword fight with that other painter who
rhymed almost with Penguin? Did he wrap it
in a cloth as a Christmas present for
the lady at the red-light district making her
faint from revolt? Did he release it
with a rusted razor because Emo wasn’t
in style quite yet and wrists weren’t the
proper place for mutilation/suicide?

Did Vincent lose his name to his place
of residency due to this morbid matter of
being mad?

Improv 18 (“Goodtime Jesus” Tate)

“Goodmorning breath Jesus”

His beard has biscuit crumbs and café latte foam adding another layer to his mustache. An ass appears at the window with some fresh Colombian beans. He thanks him and wonders if he saw that on one of those nineties children shows with an Amanda. He wakes up his wife with some stanky breath kisses and as she rolls over with a curse he sings her favorite song “Pistol.”

Improv 17 (“Mock Orange” Gluck)

“Smells like a Clockwork Orange”

Alex DeLarge probably didn’t smell like
orange peels. More like moldy milk
and metallic, bloody pine-sol.
mopping the streets with baseball
bats and more blood and british
accents. Raping somber humor
into materialistic modernists.
Experimental poppycock.
Kensington Gardens may
give viewing visitors a Peter Pan
complex, but that’s better
than murder and nonsensical
rubbish words, no one can
translate properly. 

Improv 16 (“A Story About the Body” Hass)

“Honey, Why?”

In that blue handthrown bowl
full of dead bees
Did they still have their stingers?
Bees are endangered and we need the
Honey, why?
Were they a Bumble, a Carpenter or a
Honey, how did you collect them?
Did you sweep them, stabbing their
fuzzy corpses with straw bristles
never giving them hope of carrying nectar
to their queen from those flowers
Honey. Why?

Improv 15 (“Respect 1967” Ai)

“CJB is”

A patriot to the chauvinists
a piggy pothead with a stern sex drive
and his poor music tasted like homophobic rape
A dogmatic cat person giving his barely teen
brother advice on how to get a girl in bed
at Christmas Eve Mass.
I wrote a book of poetry for him who never read
with the exception of books about money
and bound it with leather and chains
then smashed it and broke the fired clay
cover with a ball-tipped hammer.

Improv 14 (“Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio” J. Wright)

“War and Football”

My boot camping brother said
they put a bowl on the table and
taped a “super” label to it for one
of their D.I. games (drill instructor)
football is supposed to be soccer
Why couldn’t us Americans come up
with our own name for this sport
of wrestling with helmets and running
with a ball across multi-lined grass?
My brother has to do back-flips across
logs and up a ladder, according to his
stick figure with an arrow labeled “black-flip”
another sport he finds amusing compared
to cleaning and getting punched for touching
shoes while scrubbing floors.
Why can’t feuding countries just send
their Marines to go play football?

Improv 13 (“Wishes for Sons” Clifton)

“Hetero Boyfriends”

they should have to cut their own meat
they should have to take a pill daily
and feed until they’re nipples are raw
they should have to bleed and frighten
us girls away every once a month
and they should have to feel
insignificant around our intelligence
of juxtapositions and concepts

they should have to cry more.

Improv 12 (“A Story” Mitchell)

“Dollar PBR or 8 Dollar High-Life?”

Downtown San Diego smells like piss and
fish, but Adamson’s Square smells only of
piss and vomit and heavy perfume. The
alcoholics on that coast are unpredictable
with their choice of cocktails and imported
overpriced beers in bottles. No sorostitutes
just simple prostitutes and no hipsters
Real musicians playing real rhythm rhymes
from instruments not a big black speaker
with a Velcro-ed on Mac.
You can’t hold a conversation with the
Californians though without feeling like
you’ve lost some brain cells or need to
drink what’s left on the shelves first.
This only goes for half of what you hear
on the square.

Improv 11 (“The Vacation” Berry)

“Adjust”

LCR’s aperture and shutter speed
on the manual setting
with the manual lens adjustment
the slower the shutter speed
the more light that’s let in
blurred objects showing every motion
sometimes too much motion.
the aperture can make close look far
and far look sharp or vice versa
for the occasion. 

Improv 10 (“Colorado Blvd” Cervantes)

“Cracks in the Parking Lot”

Where the toothless peddle puppies
                metal carriages collide with the smaller, thinner, shinier
Where others of significance hold the fort
                and hide from the transfer of plastic pouches
Where the pedestrian always walks the slowest
                and knows they’re being stalked to be closer
 To the yellow striped asphalt that shores the
destination.

Improv 9 (“The Day Lady Died” O’Hara)

“The Days I Make Clay”

I grab my woodfire recipe sheet then go straight
to the back room and carefully measure out each ingredient
Custer Feldspar, OM4, Fine Grog, Neph. Sy. Etc.
on that scale from 1920 something
I take the blender drill and meld until the 100 pounds
of silicosis has become one dirt brown.
                             The two half-inch slits in the wall sucks
away most of the cancer away from my trachea
My alveoli will be safe for a couple decades
This batch will last two weeks hopefully
adding scoops here and there in the red brown and white
crusty mixer. First add water and let it loudly blend for
an American Spirit’s burning age because
no one ever
cleans
the goddamned thing. Always have to scrape the sides first
and make sure the side latch is in all the way so no
Black bruises or decapitation occurs that day.

Improv 8 (“My Papa’s Waltz” Roethke)

Papa’s a Ballet Dancer

Grabbing scary-skinny women’s waists
and throwing them in the air like feathers
Papa says they’re domestic
when I ask why
one of them comes home with us

Sliding and gliding on his tippy toes
and twirling through those seven spots like suns
Papa says athleticism makes you sweat
when I ask why
his clothes have to be so tight

His arms outreach with an airplane attitude
and the ladies always drop through them like helicopter leaves.
Papa says his job is more exciting
when I ask why
he’s not a pilot anymore

His makeup is less red than Mother’s was
and he never wears skirts like hers
Papa says lots of the words I get soap in my mouth for
when I ask why
he sometimes sniffles and screams when it’s bedtime.

Improv 7 (“Frying Trout While Drunk” Emanuel)

“Fried Nemo with Citrónge Patrón”

For a zesty tang.
Tastes like Marina del Rey
Saccharine white stripes
Tangerine right gimp no gripes
With a side of bean dip
Prepared by another Skip
Kate’s mother’s in that one
Movie with lots of puns
About that guy
Who must die
Back to the bubbling pan
Fresh from Skip number six’s
Grandmother’s favorite cake mix
Boil until it squishes
And the clown fish will be your
Great Great Great Great
Grandchildren’s favorite dish.

Improv 6 (“The Colonel” Forsche)

“Colonel Mustard”

I saw him do it. With the knife. In the poolhall. An actual hall of water. No parting yet so similar to the red sea. Where those submerged, Spanish ears inhaled the facts.  Mustard and his silent wife. Just one extensive paragraph to document the evident stammers under his moustache. The process of elimination guessing outside the shelter of his mustard colored Porsche. The maid walked in. Saw Mustard. Espanol ears with soundless cow tongue. Santeria.  Tacitness, her black eyes forever scarred.  He left too many Xs on the grid for them to find. Too many clues. 

Improv 5 (“Helen of Troy….” Atwood)

“’I Sell Vision, like Perfume Ads’”

Self-respect in selling sandwiches.
Sexy sandwiches. Unwrapped while
crafting and stacking
meat with desire. A raping affair
of yeast and provolone.
Only a woman could erotically exercise
the exact diagonal cut without crust.
Savoring the exploitation of
murder and mold.
Maybe we like these birds because
they’ve always been grounded:
an ugly neurotic with bobble headed beaks.
Scrumptious breasts though.
Of course you concur. 

Improv 4 (spice)

“Rounded Little Blushed Ones”
Sea salted and scalloped or
boiled with olive oil.
Diced and fried, smothered and covered
with some coffee love for that 4am pick-me-up-to-drive.
No baked unless stifled with cheddar,
fake bits of bacon and a dollop of some Daisy.
Cubes smushed into cylinders
on foil with burnt edges like a pug.
Five second squeeze of ketchup.
Dash of more sea salt.
Necessary nutrient iodized
for the table.