Self-paralysis

by M.P. Powers

The wet sound of a violin floating
around the dark room.
A soft light bleeds on the edge
of the forest, the trees
shuddering in their dark bodies.
And I can see nothing
else tonight but my own thoughts.
I splash some Chilean wine
in a pickle jar, leaf through my papers.
And then it comes. The voice
of a little girl, or the pilgrim
soul of one, crying for her father.
She is out among the trees,
frightened, desperate.
And for months it's been going on,
maybe even years.
The same terrible words: "Why
are you doing this to me?
Daddy?" I scratch out a couple
feeble sentences, splash some more
wine in the jar. And sit here
like I aways have, paralyzed
by the dread
forces in me, waiting on the wolves.

Work With Me

by M.P. Powers

An aging surfer dressed like he's still
fourteen, shouting in his cellphone.
And I can hear him from all the way under
the coconut palms: "I told you I'd have yer money
on Friday, bro... Read my lips...
FRIDAY!" He clops up the hill in his flip-flops.
Passes a young beauty in a black
bikini. She struts past me, shaking softly her three
silver bracelets as the music pours out
of the reggae bar. She moves
in perfect rhythm with it, and she'll stay in
perfect rhythm, just like that, for years,
through all her love affairs,
drifting along, the music brushing lightly
her hips and her shoulders,
her silky skin, touching her ears, becoming her thoughts
and words and then... well,
and then... going slowly out of season,
like all of us
who live long enough. The music finding someone
else. It's all part
of the process, and when it happens,
it just happens,
and you have to know it's happened,
that's the whole thing. I watch
as she takes the crosswalk, takes
the other side of the street. A few minutes later,
she is gone, and the old surfer
is back, still on his cellphone. A tired old song he is
from a bygone era. "Dude...
Why you gotta bust
my chops? I told you my situation! Work with me,
bro... Work with me..."

Doomsday Prophet of Miami (or, God is Whoever You Say He Is)

by M.P. Powers

Standing in the shade of a palm tree
off Biscayne Blvd., feet planted in the grass,
head perched atop a sandwich

board proclaiming: THE WICKED
SHALL BE TURNED INTO HELL
AND ALL THE NATIONS THAT FORGET

GOD. He mops the sweat off his brow,
his John Bull
roachwhiskers titter

vaguely, his expression perfectly
miserable. "That's right," he shouts,
his eyes finding

a defenseless elderly lady

hunkered in her car, halfway under the steering
wheel. "I'm talkin
to YOU!"

Underbelly

by M.P. Powers

A beggar with dreads and bloodshot eyes

toothless
except for a fang
raps on the window of my truck. "Goz any
change?" I look in the console, shake my head

no... He trudges

off. The light changes. Miami is a different
beast
for everyone, at any given time, but today,
on NW 27th

Avenue, the beast seems only evil.

I see it in the three
grimacing faces at the bus stop,

dark faces

like "rainbeaten
stone," and the heavy stormclouds.

There's an old
Spanish
mural pealing, and a place where nothing
grows: the one-story motel
under
the railway, a soulless
agglomeration of no-frills
fuckshacks
overlooking a glorious
empty parking lot.

As I pull near, I imagine
some of the dark secrets
those rooms

know. Make up a few scenerios of my own.

And then a door opens. A skinny white
crackwhore
creeps out, barefooted, hair a mess, purse slung
over her shoulder. She limps
up the sidewalk,
bony jaw
working, eyes, wild. A man howls
something
at her
from up on the trestle.

A train shears by. 11 a.m.

on a Monday, and the naked
light jiggles.

Birds of agony,
rise.

Earth moves
softly in its soiled wingless
mystery.

Hotel Dusseldorf

by M.P. Powers

I feel like some lowly strip mall
with all
the windows barred up and half the lights
burnt out.

I FEEL LIKE ALL THE SLOP STUCK TO ALL THE PLATES
IN EVERY
FUCKING
CHOKE-AND-PUKE IN DEUTSCHLAND.

I feel normal
because
today is my last day
here, and tomorrow? My life will begin
to end
again. Or fail to begin again.

My fault, I know...

But either way
I wait,
listening to the beautiful German chambermaids
padding
down the hallway.

Dreaming of the one that knocked on my door
earlier
with the long amazonian
legs
and short powderblue
skirt.

She gave me soap & towels
and smiled at me
suggestively (I thought)
and that was enough...

I open a little bottle of Jagermeister.

I hate Jager
but seeing it downstairs in the hotel vending machine
proclaiming
itself
in all its coughsyrupy
glory

I couldn't resist.
Especially after weinerschnitzel and four large steins
of the local
lager
courtesy of my soon-to-be defunct
VISA.

I take a sip.

Rip open the curtain...

There's a factory out there.
Smokestacks.
A highway.
Trees.
The sky is completely overcast.

Uhhg.

Feels like I'm in
Jersey.

get on the horn, asshole

by M.P. Powers

in all his savagery, this rabid pyramid
schemer of fiftyfivehundred
"maggot mile," boca raton, who is particularly babbitt
personified
appropriates in his subterranean boiler
room two dozen or so ill-spoken telemarketers
dressed in rebuttal sheets and lousy
self-worth, whose moral
fiber his excellency ineloquently assassinates
between pump-and-dump... when sales are slow,
or perhaps it's the way his delectable
eminence minuets
on nimble-toed crocodile
loafers, the mattress of his plus-sized womanly
arse smuggling
deathly gall, for god and country... or because
you too have witnessed our host's
nosehairs have grown
a mustache, remembering the time
his dimpled fist choked a fountain-pen
salesman's festive necktie while showering blue
invective over his sorry balding pate...

i have also boondoggled a pettifogging snit

which is neither here nor there
when night runs away with her dreams
and you
find yourself dead broke out-of-commission
and married to a bullhorn;

i know the feeling

Thursday Night on the Metro

by M.P. Powers

When the train stops at Blanche, an old man sidles
aboard. He's wearing a dark motheaten fleececoat and
   has an accordion slung over his shoulders.
He peers around, the brim of a battered fedora
shading his heavylidded French eyes. The eyes of an artist.
The door closes; we lurch forward and he begins
   with an old Parisian song. His fingers frolicking
about the keys; fingernails broad and shining like tiny
   clamshells. He sways about the hips, beats softly
time with his foot, and when he finishes his two
minutes of wondrous music, he draws a small leather cup
out of a case. He gives it to the lady beside him; she looks at it
   with disdain and passes it on.
It goes to the front of the train and comes back
   around, still empty... He returns it to
its case and sits down, resting the accordion on his knee.
He slumps over a little bit. Meanwhile, the train jostles along,
moving us all
   through the night; the tired, the spiritless. All of us,
huddled together,
   without music, barely alive.

The Evidence

by M.P. Powers

joe's a self-professed homophobe

his jokes are bad,
obvious: "ya hear duh one 'bout
duh tree faggots?"

he rattled off a few of those
at the bar
the other day

and then started telling jim
and a few others
about his latest
fling

someone he met in the bahamas

"my wife ain't givin
it to me no moah," he said, "so what
duh fuck?"

"anyway, i snuck out at foah
in duh moahnin...
told duh
old lady
i had tuh go tuh work early

next i know
i'm drivin into miami beach
i get tuh her house
climb a trellis
coz
i don't wanna wake her kids
ya know

and duh broad's waitin
fer me naked
in duh middle uh duh room

a few minutes latuh
we're goin at it

pair uh legs wrapped around my
neck

and moanin?

ya nevuh heard such moanin...

i'm tinkin 'bout the kids
and duh bedpost
bangin

i tink we did it
in every
position
an'
den
when we were done
we snuggled
in bed

fine-ass bed
wit a canopy and everyting...

so dare we are
spoonin..."

jim interrupted

"when you were spooning," he asked,
"were you in front
or in back?"

"in back, why's it mattah?"

"no, i'm just saying, when you were back there
did you ever think
to reach up between his
legs
and grab onto his
balls?"

everyone laughed
joe leaped
off his barstool and wrapped
his arm
around
jim's neck

"ya know i could snap dis ting
if i wanted
to..."

"you could
jim said, "but did you ever hear the one about
the really angry
faggot?"

he torqued his arm
then
let go

apparently
he did

he knew that one
by
heart