Plagiarizing the Full Moon Chapter Of Victor Pelevin’s Omon Ra

I picked up the I suddenly felt
I lowered my I nodded & I ran
Outside a red poster

The first time I drank
Was the winter of my fourteen shriveling pieces
Of painful comparison with the beautiful American
Flying magazine

If not for the bottles of cosmic
Asking “want some?” & I did I
Winking tongues like petrol
But that was a long time ago

Crept unhurriedly
In a suit like a snowdrift up-ended
I understood immediately & I closed my eyes

Tea nearly burnt in a saucepan
The country in which I lived

 

Us Scenario

Another wife & her husband
Have been printing garlands in rose-loads
I would help you, but I “cook” too much
Forget to drink water

Obsessed with dosas how they foam
My zoos of rotten jars mimic the credits
To The Land Before
Time to watch the polyp sprout its’ leg

I was sad because I thought I had
Two left to eat, but I see now there are three
The last lies in an ear of parchment
Hidden unnamed kitten

& He: my man is
More dimpled than most
Spends his day vacant
Snagged on the toast

 

Calendar

The Famous Faces
Drawn by hand
Calendar is laughing
From the top of its spinner
The bouffant above its eyes
& the sockets that keep them
Woefully shaded

When I was a baby
I spun by myself
On the devil’s playground
What passed as merry-
go-round in those days a
Concrete disc to pile upon
With iron pipes
For the kids

Not to insist
On another time but I had
A pendulum uncoils once.
My friend flew out
Of our tire swing
& cracked her bone

Where it stuck out
Of a small red X
Like something
Vertical finally

 

 

Lisa Nance is an artist, bookseller, waitress & a poet. She lives in Asheville, N.C. & often looks to her ancestry of Black Mountain college students for insight. She is currently teaching herself to glaze in oils by painting from life a wall of marshmallows that she built herself. She is reading the Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin.

© Lisa Nance

Photo Credit: © EddieCloud / Adobe Stock