N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 0 9

SARAH PETERS

Progress is the Bo-Tox of Everything

After Vladimir Mayakovsky

Where to park a car

with horsepower such as this?

And what station to play

while I circle?

Were I

champagne of beers flat,

en pointe aloft foam I’d sink.

Dogpaddle rapids to tease barkeep,

to secure correct licensing

for this caliber.

The gun range too crowded for tripsaver?

Were I drowsy

as a game show,

I'd still take the kip.

Somnumbalist exhausted!

A triple shot of Venusian roasted ain't nothin'

for my encyphalitic lethargica.

Had I a writer's block

prolific as Stephen King's,

nimble as pick pocket at nudist's colony,

shame them into seclusion with smut-crammed hard drive!

My libido could

fill an above-ground pool:

floating in tan lines,

leaving no wake,

the aryan 007––soaking book review pages!

Were I

refined as midnight thunder,

how I’d yank yr chain!

One eyelash flash

would change the channels of BBC.

And if

I end up raving

against all fantasy fiction,

Darth Vadar, distressed, would wring gloves

on Death Star

and march off set.

Were I dim as some,

I'd scramble brains

of computer egg heads

all by i-phonetic,

satellite radiant,

netjerkoff profile.

Or I’ll pass,

dragging outmoded cathode ray.

On what

heroic air-disaster landed, embryo implanted,

by what atheist scientist was I begot –

I, so literary

and by no one readed?

Dear Futurists:

So right to say 'horn of time blows,'

but I got mean nostalgia jones,

busy crooning 'Nature Boy,'

bobbing my hair. Can future wait?

Sincerely,

The Present