Email to Damniso Lopez

E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ
(SHOP WINDOW)

A shop window,
Shaped to simulate
A cathedral window,

A window without the expected
White, brown sheep,
Brown-streaked pasture rocks,

But a window stained
With faint, covert rainbow hues,
So the gazer who gazed through

The faint rainbow stains
Would feel, as he had been
Conditioned by prior myths,

A covenant established between him
And now divine capitalistic commerce
That no harm would come

When he spent his needed money
On a commodity he did not need
But must have to be fashionable.

In the shop window were displayed
Purple pom-pons and purple-dyed
Ostrich feathers in propeller-shaped vases.

The pom-pons, ostrich feathers
Were assembled to resemble
Warplanes arranged for bombing.

The shadows that fell
Were tinted darkly to
Resemble smart bomb shapes.

In between the false shadows
Were scraped easily recognized shapes
To connote phalli with high IQ's.

The window display must have
Attracted the gazers, for this was
The most crowded store in the mall.

Some mistook the pom-pons for pom-poms.

E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ
(NATURE LOVERS OUTFITTERS)

"Mannequins have become
The model for imitation," Henri Pollès.

In the show window of the store
Named "Nature Lovers Outfitters,"
Stood a tall mannequin, short precise haircut,
Light blue, white undertoned summer suit,
A pale orange, precisely knotted tie
According to instructions printed in Esquire.
This man with a corpse-colored face
Gripped passionately the steering wheel
Of a bright red convertible BMW;
The other hand, the left, extended
To press one finger into the plumb flesh
Of a blonde-wigged girl's cheek.
The false blonde wore a long, ankle-length
Nineteen-century fluffy crinoline dress.
She wore pale pink gloves.
In her hands she help two products
Currently on sale, thirty percent off:
Carbon colored slip-on rain pants
And an ultramarine rain jacket with hood.
In front of the man, the girl, the car
Were scattered simulated beach sand
Made from dyed sawdust of cypress.
On the sand were placed blue crabs of plastic.

E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ
(NOTE BOOK AND TAPE RECORDER)

After observing with note book
And tape recorder the social life
In shopping malls, whether or not,
The mall simulated a quaint nineteen
Century village, or a 1930 Depression
Downtown, or the Firenze Palazzo Vecchio,
Or Milano's glass-topped arcade,
Or the simulated Venice of Las Vegas.
I reached the same conclusion:
What makes for the lack of isolation,
The establishment of social extraversion, is due
To an inevitability of the human condition,
The misunderstanding of each other.

If it were not for this misunderstanding
Of the other, there would be more
Hermits, Recluses, exclusionists,
More hatred in our current society
Where hatred, overt and covert,
Is now in abundance, a surplus.
Misunderstanding of each other
Is the basis for a coherent,
Consensual, well-functioning society.

E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ
(UNSEEN NATURAL THING)

"I saw a charming dress made of corks,"
Guillaume Apollinaire, 1927

At the shopping mall
Where the mayor
In a political speech
Had just proclaimed,
"It is better for a coherent society
To have outrageous sartorial fashions
And tattooed bodies
Than to have outrageous philosophies
And outrageous thinking,"
An unseen natural thing, sharp
Pointed, razor edged, came out
Of ambush, a hedge, to slip through
A small hole on the knee section
Of a pair of cut-off faded blue jeans
To rip a much larger tear
That only provided a petite adornment.
Now, this much larger split
From knee to ankle established
An adornment that would be celebrated
When viewed by shoppers
In the shopping mall that was decorated
With simulated snow to simulate
A rural Norwegian backwoods village.
When the boy, his nose pierced
With a wedding ring of diamonds
And gold, passed by with his
Split, flapping open faded blue jeans
The shopper's eyes would spin
In admiration, spin from a bleached
White to the blue contact lens
That covered natural brown eyes;
Energized by spinning eyes
The shoppers would rush to spend.

E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ
(CROWDED SHOPPING MALL STREETS)

"Ever since humanity passed from
Nakedness to clothing, 'senseless
And nonsensical' fashions have played
The role of wise nature," Helen Grund


Crowded, the simulated red brick
Streets of a shopping mall built
To simulate the bygone downtown
Depression days center with its
Salvation Army black-suited band
And Salvation Army singers
Providing visions of the forthcoming
Promised land of backyard barbeques.
Much-sauced beefs and legal beer.
It was a simulation of a time
When there was no shopping malls,
The community gathered
At the center of the town
Where at the time the five and dime
Stores ruled from behind Gothic façades.
This current and temporary shopping mall
Simulated the bygone life
Before the miracle television
Brought a new dispensation
As a surrogate for life into the world.
Television joined
With movies, churches, colleges
To serve everyone with the possibility
Of living an existence of pure fiction.

The consumers came to the new
Shopping mall dressed in costumes,
The grande dame dressed as cocotte,
The elegant man walked
With a plebian ape-like slough
With his false hair
And his accentuated rear,
The blue jeans whitened
where fat buttocks protruded.
The consumers all conformed
To appear au courantly casual,
Appearing apparently aleatorical,
As a mask, a disguise
To hide their constrained,
Regulated lives, their lickspittle,
Toady existence of being
Puppets of popular opinion
And a power structure
That was invisible to them.

Duane Locke

Posted over on StrangeRoad