Poetry; The Autoerotic Asphyxiation of Michael Hutchence

-for Andy Nicholson


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Oh my gawd, you’re...sunlight but
backwards...ask
the gutter punks to scoot
down just a bit. Life carries us
like an old timey bicycle, a papier
mache stiff and wet when
it’s still in the womb --
we’d honestly make greater innovations
if we played this fast
and loose, ten pounds,
keep saying it,
ten pounds, the prospect of home ownership.

≠

The pie cooling on the prose
windowsill misalignment, singing,
staring blind into the eclipse bookcase;
boarded up bomb shelters and pirate gold.
Carve your tongue “censored”
sides of lonely cows
licking short buses, brushing
pudding silhouettes across window shades
(voyeurs) and trees asking reasons --
trees can’t talk about fine breakfasts and Dada
is dead and I still consider myself very likable.

≠

Today’s compromise as an institution:
they’re called Moai, I think,
those Easter Island heads. No
Michael, not Grace Jones. The signs
saying something like “Wake Up You Fucking Lemmings.” Shout - shout -
shout at the Devil. “Michael, I swear
if you say halcyon one more time...”
That man with the duffle bag is suspiciously
and by the bicycle. He is staring
at his cell phone like a car radio, regretting
sophistry. Living. Better. “Patrick,
seriously, ask for it Quebec Style and see what she says.”

≠

Our moods are illustrated open
windows where soup, in its bowl, is King Ghidorah-like
in every way. String theory has been blown out
of proportion - wait -
the pelvis bones. The nude body is here reduced
to an oil spill on the garage floor, a cushion
of Oxford stripe fabric. We have the misplacing of anger
here in small town America. Hold on one second
the Braves just loaded the bases.

≠

Photographs of the nude body as a topographical map.
Photographs of the human heart as wallpaper.
I lost her to a guy with,
of all things, an ironic mustache.
Rather than argue, the bus driver
returned the fare, responded
saying the United States leads the world
in championing human rights. Amy suggested
wearing fog as clothing,
I suggested it would be hell in winter.

≠

A warm thursday coffee shop drum
beat, sound of spoon parting liquid cash
register. Denim. Sunglasses. Ceramic
on ceramic. There is a bird
with assorted annuals growing from its beak.
The sound of grinding. A woman
looks closer. A man mentions
something to do with Waylon Jennings
and different shades of the same
shirt. “Espresso please.” Picture
hair. Jon (a painter I know walks
by with a forty in a paper bag) and
an older French man pronounces “civil-
ee-thae-scion.” A woman dictates
it to her mushrooms, her gown Saturn
and fire, dust, cymbal crash. Emphasizing
a hand gesture. Too skinny. Too skinny. Nice pants.