Things Have Not Always Been As They Are Now

THINGS HAVE NOT ALWAYS BEEN AS THEY ARE NOW

Contractors pour gin and tonic on blue prints
to watch the colors darken,
then signal for the pouring of concrete
six blocks down the street.

Being built
a gallery for discount shopping, fast food eating,
and
Entertainment
of precision chorus girls
with a row of twenty adolescents
lifting their legs and garters at exactly
the same moment
at five o’clock every Friday afternoon.

There will be celebrations.
Candle-lit ceremonies, many
weddings, many divorces,
many wax effigies of young lovers kissing
posing as if sculptured by Rodin
surrounded by vases of fuzzy flowers
painted by Redon.

When the concrete is poured and the floor,
secured
a fire will be built
between a stack of cement blocks
and on an iron grate a silver kettle
will be sat,
out of the steam from the spout will arise
a Venus whose naked body is tattooed.


Duane Locke

Posted over on The Hold