Poems by Jeff Bagato
America’s Porn Star Love
down below heroes
lie the gods of good American mind,
dolly and doll boy of the video revolution
pumped and plasticized for day
dream constitution—you have
the right to your own hand—
at last thinking freedom has come,
but it’s only the mind-blown,
peter soft rent-a-box salvation
coursing thick thru American
veins like a gallon of white
paint in a money shot xtravaganza—
all over the tits and the walls—
never use a squirt when
a flood will do—heavier
love pretends inspiration arriving
in a naked eye; who does
the looking?
It’s the frozen
eyes of fear staring thru thick
glasses hoping to keep passions
contained to the screen & remote,
on/off knobs joy ride fast forward—
pause—look closer—we’re just now
going to come—when it’s all over
we can go back to living
deep in the superego duck blind,
the hunter gathering new
ammo for his next load
Life on the River, Ripened on the Vine
Mowgli sits on Baloo’s chest down
the river, smoking hash in a
turf brown water pipe;
“Pass the tube, please,” dreams
the bear as they drift by an
old guy with his thumb out,
nursing a cigar and shriveled
like a pitted prune—if you
are what you eat, they can’t
be that good for your digestion—
and the guy says, “Soup
at the All American, yes
boys, good boys”—
the river patiently pulling at Baloo’s
nuts before he realizes this is that part
of the Amazon infested
with pirahna; he sticks drainage
pipe from the bong below the surface,
and stones every water mite within
three miles in an inky cloud like a great white
octopus from the bowel of Satan—
bleaching the rocks, and
even his fur got blond—
“That’s all I need,” the bear laughs,
“to look like the president
of the United States of America!”—
white people now cheering
from the banks like bees around
fungus, each man seeing a
metaphor for his own fight up the stream,
each blow a good one struck for him
in his struggle, each footstep
made for his glory, that greater good,
linking hands across tribulation, one
long bridge of humanity kissing
ass like a leech—Baloo bellows
“I can feel ‘em from here”—
their words like white
petals falling from purling
lips, an ogre’s maggots fountaining
down on the pair—
“take the stage at your own risk
and walk swiftly lest
they pull the
plug”
Ouija at the Feast
Ouija dons her rags
and enters the illusion—
false colors, false waters,
blind corridors secured
with wire and video eyes,
where clumping slime prays to angels
for a dungball feast laid out so pretty
to feed the masquerade,
all the dancers pushing forward
to grab their share of an everlasting meal,
and so the fantasy begins:
“Once upon a diamond”
(Ouija writes) “we had plenty
and we made it scarce
hiding it in vaults of desire
and put price tags on the beauty of flowers
and took water and air out of circulation,
and so utopia was paved
for magic cars and magic beans
and the magic toys all dumped
from a sack like everyday is Christmas—
No bricks made those walls,
but they stand firm
as long as they remain invisible”
Ouija leaps into the punch
bowl, splashing fruit juice
on the monkeys and the mimes
who riot and wreck
the feast table to the ground
before running into the night
screaming for rain
and winds and destruction
