Pointer Arithmetic

by David S. Pointer

             C Pointer is an address
D. Pointer is an unzip code

readability in the laser guided
                              illuminations
shush-ability in the cylindrical
                               coordinate
                                system

exclusionary zymology yacht
                                       floats
          like a forever ocean home
          without the parenthesis of
           unjust obstacles, hijacked
                                       poetry

over android nurse’s
parametic curves on
asylum admissions
                                  computer
for indigent, who can’t keep
reapplying deep-pocket face-
paints to other folks madness

Jack of Dreamland Dust

by David S. Pointer

The Valentine’s Day
heart craters were in
disrepair as was the entire
      infrastructure for love
until an unidentified woman
wearing a pink hard hat and
superior high fashion gravity
boots touched down like an
unsigned holiday card aflame

On Remembering Crack in the Boxcar Door

by David S. Pointer

That day my grandma
loaded me into her 62
Ford, we went to see
a Hank Snow concert
usually I loved her many
country records-Johnny
Horton, Marty Robbins,
the man who became
The Man in Black, but
I didn’t like Hank Snow’s
record, then standing on
that wooden theater chair
so I wouldn’t drown in hall
flooding fan exuberance, I
had to admit Hank was
really great singing Ghost
Trains, 90 Miles an Hour,
and The Golden Rocket
and after that it was as if
Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse
had all been fired and life
was lit up by thunder and
lightning powered with
some Hobo’s last cigarette

George Jones Years AgoRIP

by David S. Pointer

The news man announced
that George Jones had died
and I started remembering
a story that an old tunesmith
shared with me twenty years
ago about circuit days when
Buck Owens and George
Jones were touring together
and Buck wouldn’t share
top billing from show to
show so the next night
George hit the stage and
sang all of Buck’s songs
and Buck couldn’t sing
George’s tunes so he had
to repeat the same songs
George had poured over
the audience to a bout
of hissing and booing, then
the following night George
Jones headlined the tour
and Buck learned what
a melodic Opossum
could really do.

Haiku Triptych

by David S. Pointer

camel sushi
romps away over sand
soldiers hungry

***
robotic Santa
leaked oil on naughty list
presents for all

***
turkey axe
displayed center cage
bird land museum

Gacyville, 1986

by David S. Pointer

Subjected to a criminal justice grad student
wanting me to accompany her ambitions—
interviewing John Wayne Gacy in Illinois
abut his atrocious crime resume convictions
where  this killer clown may use his own
casket lowering rope as birthday party lasso
entertaining Satan’s flock of serial killers

The Beloved

by David S. Pointer

He wrote her
chick-lit ripperology
poems—embroidered
a new blood soaked
bed sheet, and hand
built a plywood kissing
booth adjacent mausoleum
birds near her mother’s
coffin, and always
rolled straight home
after killing his own
lustful feelings over
at the coroner’s den

We’re All Human to Pete Ham and Tom Evans in Memoriam

by David S. Pointer

After the first
Badfinger suicide,
I was thinking
about Pete Ham
singing Perfection…
there’s no good
revolution,.. they’ll
be no perfect man…,and much later a
drug addict’s
drool like sewer
gravy—crying
at the nurse’s
crash cart as if
he were fumbling
to safe crack the
hospital’s narcotic
safe back to sanity,
back to Perfection

1969: Curbside Cleanup?

by David S. Pointer

President Nixon’s motorcade
rumbles along Truman Road
Kansas City motorcycle cops
process the street near Cash
Bargain Lumber Company-I’m
the astonished 7 year old kid
holding historic hedge apples-
I might’ve averted Watergate
with one light green diplomatic
greeting missile, misshapen,
splatting up a sidewalk balk
over the smoked glass non-
transparency entrusted with
the gigantic peoples’ planet

Highest Bidder Hit

by David S. Pointer

The electromagnetic war
mongers roamed a mystical
Marsoid strip where
unintentionally absorbed
lightmail messages
about deep bat taxidermy,
bacterium documentary
biofilms, and wavelength
bombardment had been
intercepted for lightyears
by an unbalanced crew
previously studying thermal
equilibrium and the stress
hormones of humanoids
emitted before battle maze
engagement now focused
and equipped for the war
mongers overrunning to
requisition their computer
chip cryo-files for a rogue
particle radiation researcher
in high planetary demand
for imploding dwarf speed
bubble ships shootouts

Child Custody

by David S. Pointer

She's an over & under derringer of docility
He's a kitchen axe of mother worshiping collegiality
Their judge's decision cuts like a court sword-
who here hasn't carried the heavy mail sacks
of someone else's deep enduring silence as
the children are bailiff led though bruised light

Oak Ridge Area Case Worker

by David S. Pointer

The
client's wife's neck
tumor protrudes
like a gamehead
growing past you,
and there's not
enough fish bone
bourbon to see
enthusiasm through
fingers reaching a
fat phone book
searching for any
surgeon fantastic
or fair priced near
the Sevierville area

Listening to the Liquid

by David S. Pointer

Her shushing, his silence,
his silence, her shushing-
a finger saw to each
unspoken sentence as
Nashville floodwaters
roared carrying a Christian
Academy away down the
interstate until it crashed
into a couple of semi-trucks
exploding bricks drowning
as the roof swam away
in search of possibly a new
bullet-pocked paradise
beyond oncoming liquid