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Alan Gilbert

The Carnivore's Dilemma

1)

A truck hauling scrap metal

ended up on the heap.

The moral arc may be long,

but its interruptions are constant.

From the ground, the horizon

shrank to a view down

the glistening nose of a bugler

summoning the troops as

the skies above opened up.

A dog trotted for miles

without changing its pace.

Superheroes are fantasies

of childhood, but the hazard lights

don't tell me if you're real.

They only signal caution,

which won't make me a better poet,

just a little less likely to get

the bends in rainwater receptacles.

No need for a scuba suit now

that it all floats on the surface,

beginning with an apology

and ending with a full shopping cart

in front of Wal-Mart.

I'd describe it more like tumbling.

At some point I stopped believing

in fate because it wasn't

getting me anywhere.

A new skin forms along

the milk carton's rim.

2)

Small, hard june bugs collect

on the screen door of

a laundromat offering free Wi-Fi.

We ate eggs in the hole

for breakfast, then sweated

them out later while trying

to pitch a tent on the sidewalk

outside the nail salon,

saying, Fuck the prestige

of elite institutions,

this block is like a village.

We didn't really say that,

and I didn't really say this.

It could be much worse

compared with the mistake we

once made with creamed spinach

fattening us up for slaughter

when I only wanted to cuddle.

We're all going to end up as

bisexual computers anyway.

Well that changes everything!

Except for the daily radio address

schedule, and the nod

to permafrost--so eco-friendly.

We sip beer from a used

Dunkin' Donuts coffee cup

instead of getting a haircut

after another night

of fierce electronics.

The Alchemy of Morning

The lion stores gold in its mouth and yawns at the sun.

Would it be better if its teeth were tight with braces?

The lost objects come back in different disguises, like a catalog

that specializes in last-minute gifts. This one smells of mint

and wet cardboard boxes tossed with ski poles under the bus.

It's rough terrain even for hang gliders. Imagine how the future

farmers feel. This isn't the United States of America. I sometimes

imagine a strobe light when it's only a faulty bulb. On certain days

everything vibrates slightly and speaks a language of hum.

That doesn't have anything to do with enjoying nature or not,

or whether I'm a regular at the closest bar.

The gears grind whenever they're shifted hard into neutral.

That won't stop the runaway mining cart headed for a large gap

in the tracks. In my dream, it exploded in an exaggerated fireball.

You said, I'm glad it's all behind us now. My view of life is incomplete.

There was nothing left to do with the piles of empty beer cans

except resize them as jpegs for the web. I donated my collection

of giraffe neck protectors to the Smithsonian. You can see them

in the modern wing with Wu-Tang Clan memorabilia and an oil

portrait of my father as a hat shop. I meant to say a velvet painting

of Barbara Walters conducting an interview with Yuri Andropov.

Fast food restaurants create a logic for the burger. I shared

a hair color rinse with Lindsay Lohan. That sound is of the other

shoe dropping, except that sometimes you never hear the first one.

Or maybe it's just the click of a dog's nails on the bare floor.

Still, I don't have any pictures of pets on my Facebook page.

When I hear the word bricklayer, I also think of basketball.

Are we taking it really slow or just ignoring each other?

The award for wearing the biggest backpack to the hip-hop show

is called logorrhea. It's fun to imagine the things you can laminate!

It might even take the musty smell out of that wet bath towel.

We keep a telescope inside to find stars on the ceiling

but mostly end up staring at the TV. One screen was even bigger

than my daughter and washed the room in Easter egg colors.

I listen to the radio with the speakers pointed away. The photographs

tell us what we already know. The guardrail has more than

a few dents in it beneath pink magnolia blossoms sagging

in the rain. Yet once the invisible pen dries out, the writing

will be even harder to read. I didn't touch your money. I'm here

to rearrange every solitary corona as the back of the class blurs

for the nearsighted teacher.

Window Dressing

The wreckage might drift over a large area,

but not every map has a center,

not every instrument makes a sound.

I only need to hear you breathing.

Sometimes I eat for two.

A small marching band shuffles along

in the middle of a parade

featuring a red Corvette convertible

and a wagon stacked with corn.

Bats are decent swimmers

is what the mermaids told me

while scraping their knuckles on coral

and adapting to new technologies.

Most people on TV seem to like us,

except for the politicians on talk shows.

I use a cricket's wing for a syringe

once the illness becomes part of the cure

for supplying a desert army

in the heartland.

When it's over, we'll catch a bus

through the forest to a low sun.

It's not that we're directed,

but we still know what to do,

speaking when the intercom light blinks

and saving money on ketchup in large jars.

Yet that's no reason to take

all the photographs with you

or demand, "Get me some dwarfs

for the performance!"

This is a poem about a flood in the apartment,

or trading the soapbox for the pillbox

as the architecture turns into ghosts.

Putting it in a plastic bag will help

reduce the smell.

A doghouse is a temporary shelter

with an oval door for a long jaw.

Let love build it this time.

Threat makes animals shy in their bodies.