Volume 16 ~ Spring 2004 ~ ISSN 1543-6063

in Normal, Illinois
who goes but youth
and glorious small Christians

their limbs are warm, the girls have little doves,
the boys grow baby turkeys

there is no talk of Auntie Christ

no talk of boobies or of ding dongs there.

I want to run in and shout
“I have a ding dong and held the boobies!”

but I stay in the traffic
and the centuries
glory on

FERN CULTURE

In the video store today
another movie
of John Travolta wearing sunglasses
another movie
of Laurence Fishburne
under a hat
of Drew Barrymore
looking coquettish
of Meg Ryan
on the phone
I am growing old
I can take even more
of Denzel
Washington
handsome capable
I go into the foreign
film section
what
unfamiliar people
doing what
things
What the hell they doing
They look
fairly handsome But
Where the guns
They are not safe
These movies not
safe. Something wrong
in foreign film
Don’t they
have safety What the hell they doing
in other countries
of movies

DEAR PAPER WASP

The day I killed you, the virile paper wasp
I cursed my sicko self
as if I’d shot an albatross

What a dorky buzzing, overwrought
kazoo-playing elf, who but you
could have gotten lost

between the pane and sky and window-shelf?
Rippy little fart: drunk
as out of a minute hand’s saloon

I watched you bouncing
and turning
at the window like a
baffled magnet

Sincerely,

Gabriel Gudding

Poems © Gabriel Gudding 2004. All rights reserved.

Duncan Hannah
www.jamesgrahamandsons.com

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