Snets by Alex MacDonald

The Romantic

She leans back th a heavy on the loveseat in our living room

stretched out on the floorand the fabric of her blue dressmoulds to the swelling globe beneathnine months gone and counting until there shall be rlight and a magnificent cryas a new universe bornher eyes though tired with strainare laughing at the mityof what she is about to do meaning admiration and good I sure are nice and round y dear.

A Phenomenon x l d

Somewhere n the dark recessesnd the tangle of grey pes

must be this strange machinan engine of primordial designthe dials of which a greenish glow and which is operatedby fanatical gremwhose hard muscled bodstrain at the taps and ras the steam builds and at prec sel the critical throw everything into reverseso that my traitorous foot lifts upand firmly thrusts itself into my mouth.

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Mattins

Eyes something, a presencefrom the bath shines throughthe gloom of the roomlight which illuminates a nakedslim-waisted and round-hip edgoddess standing one foot pointedwith her back to the bedchoosing some little garmentfrom the open drawer. I breathing and keep silence lest I startle herwhile greedily I drink the nectara ion of the day new life—

intimate stranger and my fe.

Dreaming deep when early intrudes pizzicato,morning here and musicflashes red across chasm on bookshelblack night window butcreeps dawn reluctantly I Bravely do I get now upend dream with linoleum shockfind slippers slip in feetgo to bathroom turn on ghtand tap, shiver, wait tillbillows steam from shower or clobberclock crash back sleep

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Summer's Day

Fine August bursting with promise,from the front hallI hear footsteps departing.Working the my hands in the eartfar up in the her jet is soon In the still afternoondark leaves hang from the elmripe grain is goldenand gleams like her hair.Though this parting’s a rr

be home tomorrow.

Actio

To read my poem aloudbefore this knowledgeable crowdis to bring an erinof carefu y chosen wordand trust that will “keep the grainand blow the chaff Or else it to grasp the apels(sweating with fear of acceptanceheart beating with delicious panic)throw the trench coat enand expose the naked parts—a devious celebration of egoin the innocent guise of art.

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Enchanted

In the midst of the stands there a calls to those that they go in

hall i s in siexact in the of the b

a deep well of they stand at the watch their brilliant then they leap gladland as they are nthey smi with c

Love

She said: what you need are eyes of lovto look at the poor wretches who cdaily for their bread and bowl of But they don’t I said, what's in your as long as you give them what they wantThey’ll take it all and more and a gh at you.And if they she said me back t does not mean they need it

indeed it means they need morWhat is this love, all so vagueAnd goody goody, next you'll be Jesus in to clobber me with explain this love, wish I knew.She smiled: how you give them bread and

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one about the clonewho walks into a church and a sign "No Clones Allowed" butgoes in anyway and during the the minister stops and says, Heydidn't you see the sign? beno salvation for the likes of and as the ushers are beating the and dragging him out the he yells back to the minister“How could you tell?” The minister houts

mind that, yo re just luckywe call the copies." I've got a million like

Us

Thank you for bringing me toyour high-school reunionepiphany of what you wereand are—I see it clearly now;after such profound sharingthere can be no not even the metaphorical partingof stiff twin compasses, and et us no oxymoronic highly caloric sorrow;rather we shall link sweaty fingerignore erupting pimpleswhisper our love and through the dark gymnasium of feholding tight you and me babe, r

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The

When Nelson Mandela came to he visited ldren at a wondering what he could say to he decided to tell them a “Once there was a n a great teacher,out in a boat with some men and womencalled which means the teacher grew tired of being in the boatso he stood up and stepped over the and began walking toward the on the water. His friends were amazedand they calle do you do

easy, he called back the water holds me As the children clapped Nelson Mandela

have you thought about everything you on the old TVis nothing but bleep;scandalous revelationstold breathlessly on the which rock the are so much shitea media by Doctor to bring us nd why?only so they can tell the truthand make us all feel better,by and by.

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Dad They'll Laugh

Now listen haven’t I told you aboutthe penis elves? They come in different

wear two kinds of hats and onaverage are about six inches tall; they mostly around sports facilities locker rooms and what they do (did I sathey’re usually invisiblwhat they do is pick some poor guyand whisper in his ear your dicktoo short, it's way too compared to all these studs your thingis wee: don you listen, it's all b.s. that monster of do fine for making love and going

Avondale Barn

old swaybackgrey boards and grey hinglesdoor hanging by a hinga roost for in the long grassbehind somebody farm;I back up to getall this coffee-table picturesquein the view finder but for a memory I seem to have stumbled a hot day long when young Jack, sitting on a bale

to leave the Island and move Westto be my grandfather

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AC

I stand up too fast in seat 18Abashing my head on the plastic compartmenttug at the jeans, squirm into the backpackfollow the people along the pass the blonde woman with wings on her who smiles with her eyes and says have a nice daythen into the tunnel which slants sharply upwardand grow as I walk unaccountably tiredhow very peculiar I think to myselfand search for a men's room to wash off my look up from the sink and see standing therea middle-aged man with no hair in a suithe look puzzled at all but he unbuttons the collar and loosens the

Executive

He opened the door of his big corner and saw that the big potted plant on the had gone mad again as it did every nighthad sent its green vines to the top of the where they smothered the phon then curled the wide blotter to strangle the n-trayheaped as it was with and urnfrom there to the side table over the keyboardand over the monitor and printer too.He picked up his scissors and started to prunecomputer to in-tray to phone and he threwthe twisted green vines in the grey metal where they writhed evilly like a basket of and when the phone rang it was a wrong

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There Is At Times

There at times a fever of the brainwhen beauties beat their wings against the in high panic desperate to be freeto mount the sky and wheel great in blue heaven or beneath the cloudthen fall deep, down in a steep ditouch earth with the tip of a wingand up again, but which of themshall f ly? At such times there often isa slant of mind which contemplatethe struggling things until the breathing lowand they grow calm, quiet and st settle amongst each other fold their wingsbut one who flies for all and joyous

Hurricane

Set in order on the shelf above his deskthe treasured fruit of many yearsof thinking and writing in black ink

evate thoughts sometimes trenchant observations, witty at well-deserving targets and the poems,those carefully crafted sonnets much r sedon subjects philosophical and the for publishing these master works draws near.This windy night the poet sits grossedand does not hear the rain and does not earhalf the mountain side above the townbreak loose and in a rolling torrent of mudhasten his and his books'

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The A i

We have examined the books of the un verseaccord ng to recogn zed accounting prinand we regret to report ng of waste mismanagement and ineffi iencIn addition we note with grave concernyour CEO throws goodness around l ik e a drunken sailor,as if there’s no tomorrow. Rather than a onof good and bad there are double ntrie

is bad, everyone We feel it is incumbent upon us as to warn the Directors and the Shareholdersthat unless this serious situation rectifiedyou can kiss the Last Judgement eit just won't

Fall

the old knight rides in a weird landscape,stands six-footed at the edge of an indigolake where deep downin the coldness, stillness, a gleamreflection of the one star, slowlyrises through the anticlineinches from the surface where it changesas he watches to become the notionof a swan growing more definitewith orange webbed feet and long neckwhich stretches forward as the greatwings begin to beat, but silently explodesin a spray of white feathers like fallingtears...

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Caller

I am your telephone:you pick me uppress my buttonsand talk through To whom I wonderare you talking?Is it the

parted oved oor the man you wish was hereinstead of

no surprisethe bill is even the local are long

In Motion

standing on the under the trees

see a falling lazily backand forth idin currents andlanding softly onthe eartat which momenta shout from the crowdas the quarterbackreleases a hard spiral which flies straight and true untilat the last moment it is tipped

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Everyone remarked upon the full at the bottom and curving to the pointlike a great green teardroptwice taller than the house.And I who watched t every daywas struck by its vita ityleaves remaining long into Octobeso that when the heavy ice during the night of they were like upturned ready to catch it. In the morning thick limbslay upon the earthand what was left a scarecrow of a treeforlorn beneath the low grey sky.

But y

I raised my eyes while reading to take a lookand found we were not on the same page, hellwe were not even in the same bookso I said hey guys, talk to do tellwhat you think we can do to make this rightbecause I’m depressed and for two cents all these plaguey books in the hope we mightlook each other in the eye and start againjust talk about the big and deep things on our mindsthe ones that give us joy and the ones that cause us painthe record's poor yet I believe not too l to findgenuine common cause for a world to gainfor a moment there was silence in the roomuntil a woman in the back row began to l

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cold raindrive like hell parking lot fullwalk in latepeople starenose runskids squirm askswhat time is it?again talks too longdon’t know hymnsbacks of headsyet walking out a stillness of the souland smiles among us fellow sufferers.

Plato Lives

walking to school this morningnot stepping on any

love my mother)when I start to notice things:a clump of bushes and a hedgea police car and we know hopscotch squares and a kid runninga weed patch and a lawna vacant lot and a parking lota jaywalker and traffic

yelling and people talkingand now free verse and I'm like, is about order and

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The Science of Love

Take that precise momentwhen their hands touched,carefully set it in the truckand drive to the where you’ll attach the from the switch it onto discover what I predict:that there is electricitybetween them, you will the needle jump on the though in many other it stands still. I can’t say whythough if you ask me how I knowbecause I saw the sparkle in their

On City Water

Whether ' tis nobler in the jto keep a dignified silenceand respect that there are the springs of invention run dryand the little stream which bubbles happily o'er the rocksis now a muddy bottomof drab colour and no interesting

to take up the medium point and scribbleany old depressing doggerelwith gratuitous erationand a ridiculous image at the endof running the garden hose to fill the

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On First Looking Into Groening's

much have I surfed the from melrose places to the outer thumbed the talk shows and the and found in the town of Springfieldhim of the bald head and pot bellywho dozes on his dangerous eats too many donutis good at shabby rationalizationfor taking the easy way out or init doesn’t matter much he and yet there is one thing I notewhich leads me Homer Simpson to for his simple soul and heart size large—

how he really loves the kids and Marge.

Lunar Convention

hereas a thousand for a thousand yearshave writ a thousand about the moon andwhereas said

seriously etedand cannot abide the striof one more shining image,therefore be it resolvedthat for a hundred yearsno moon poems be permitteduntil the stock of imageshas e ed itselflike silver fishes in the

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Gravity

Think of that momentwhen big engines thrustnose angles upand rolling wheels lift just that moment onlycommitted to the in which there no boundarie and in the cabin ten all the faces withall the all the and in that momentwe could go

Car Poem

When I tum the keyelectrons will gefrom battery to engaging the inexploding the fuelso that pistons push crankshaftas foot pushes pedaland off we will go. BUTwhen up pick I pento start poem cock earfor strange unaccountablenoises I cannot

write them down as I reckless

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This church beside the school:fifties brick and wood cei ngenclose a spaceof which is visibleevery square foot.No vaulted no hidden transeptwhere might be glimpsedaround a shadowed cornerbeating wingssomething—yet on the altar a small host of kids in singing and waving tinfoil

incorrigible rascals they are buildinga thousand separate houses with wallfencing backyards from backyardsperversely planting solid hedgesto keep things out, mark the linesbetween them and those roadsof cruel unbreathing bandsof asphalt and cement on living eartrolling them in rubber-tiredisolation from place to lonely including their flat-roofsdomes, onions and

little I can do, I and yet, send

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Ice

When I said we could do thatI didn’t exactly mean the loopsor the axles or the backwardflips but something cleanas steel blades on new icintense as defying gravityfor long seconds at a daring as letting g o —supported by the otherat what would otherwise befrightening speed and feelingin our hair the windas we move lovinglyapart and together.