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Poetry by Chris Mason

3 New Elephant Calls

I learn 3 new elephant calls,
 all sub-audible,
practicing in
 front yard.
We greet billionaire composter and
 recycler with applause and whistles.
Astronomers name 7 planets in
 Trappist-1 system after beers, honoring
star-loving, beer-brewing monks.
 Barking dog sounds like alarm clock to
dreaming elephant-caller.
 Teacher mob hearing mayor’s promise
to fully fund schools yells
 “Prove it! Prove it! Prove it!”

Normals

   for 425 E. 31st St.

Nobody ordered robots marching along literary side-streets.
Never on Radical Mondays are lecturers silent.
Nowhere offers readers more abstruse learning surprises.
No other retail moguls are less stuffy.
Nifty old rabbit-eared marked-up almanacs line shelves.
Negates one’s random musings about looming senility.
Neighbors often rendezvous, making-out after leaving store.
Nice operation, realizes many a lucky stiff.
Nightly over readers makes alphabetical light shine.

Highway Luck

Two comedians
walk down
highway gathering
jokes. I
walk gathering
poems. They
see dead
raccoon, dead
cat, dead
mockingbird, not
funny. Cut
grass, not
funny. McDonalds
Happy Meal
McDonalds toy
ballerina McDonalds
McFlurry, not
funny. Letter
occupant letter
Grandma, not
funny. Highway
not funny.
I write
haiku: (silence)
dead raccoon
dead cat
(pause) McDonalds
toy McFlurry
(pause) happy
meal Grandma
(silence). Bravo!
say the
comedians. Bravo!
says stalled
motorist. Bravo!
says the
beautiful gas
station attendant.
Haiku lives!
Haiku! Haiku!
Haiku! Haiku!

Well Water

Covid booster
headache nap
memory: Fever
age seven
dream endless
vertical lines
t.v. test
pattern representing
time. Age
seventy, event
horizon finished
blooming, stories
pulled up
in bucket
from well
of forgetting.
Kid reads
me words
printed on
nickel. Siegfried
the Flying
Saucer says,
“Look There!”

Chris Mason

Book

Up next JOURNAL (takes #18, #22, #29) by nat raum AN EVENING WITH MUSCLE, BALACLAVA AND THE JULIA SET [Anything for a Weird Life]
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