Leslie Gerber has published a chapbook, Lies of the Poets. Here’s a mashup I’ve assembled from words and phrases. Call it my first Cubist Gerber:
Yesterday I Was In The World of Tomorrow
The canned air smelled of Styrofoam.
The thruway sky looked like weak coffee.
Jesus knew of the temple villains in Cambodia,
but spared no one Rockefeller’s gold-handed cane.
The handyman asked my wife for money, then asked me
if I’d ever kissed a brick before it fell from the wall or
stopped to watch ducks in a parking lot. I always
knew I’d grow up to visit South Beersville, or
maybe
the thruway sky looked more like cigarettes
than weak coffee. I haven’t forgotten
the billboards of Indians winning the lottery,
but another woman has left a scar on my heart.
They say she’s as beautiful as a cucumber.
They say she tamed Rockefeller’s naughty cane
by treating their horses to cocktails at the Waldorf.
I don’t believe it, not when the wind and the rain
complain in my basement. When I answer the door
the postman hands me a meteor. Even war is confused.
