—Poems and Paintings by Norman J. Olson, Maplewood, MN
IMAGE POEM #27
A row of automobiles
lined up in the twilight
like red speckles
on the blacktop. Imaginary
palm trees wrinkled in my
fingers
as the light from unseen candles
burned me. My eyeballs
rolled across the dusty, tessellated floor
as I sat in the food court remembering
the traffic, sipping diet soda through a
red-striped straw.
Caught in their shining carapaces
in petroleum fumes and
gridlock, the human
beings melted
back into mud. Road-raging palm
trees gripped the steering
wheels as swallows
swooped unseen
in the green, uneven light.
PERSONAL POEM #186
The newspaper cries and
bleeds on the
stoop
of my cooped-up life. The
Twentieth Century stumbles to
a stuttering close
and
only religious
nuts seem to notice
or care.
I am a key clicker.
I am a button pusher.
I bask in waves of mauve
and electric blue light from
the television screen.
My eyes blink green
in glowing idiocy.
I am a servant of the silicon
over-man. I am an educated
monkey, obsessed
like monkeys
in an old-fashioned zoo,
with rubbing shit
on the bars
of my cage.
A SMALL PART OF THE SPACE TIME CONTINUUM
The night is ruptured by
screaming patterns of stars.
Red and blue cars
turn onto Jackson Street
outside of Ryan's Bar
and
streetlights do cartwheels
down the sidereal
sidewalk.
The tall buildings cry real
tears
while ideas and white
noise run out of the ears
of the Midwestern choirboys and
arc-light cowboys.
Neon shards
glitter in gutters full of
ice, razor blades and the battered
faces of the neon children of
time and slowly warping space.
BREAKFAST IN LAS VEGAS
Swirling ribbons of sand,
like
wisps of snow, sift across the
shell-shocked floor, swift as
swallows. Hungry melodies
wallow in the mist. Lips
kiss
the fist of
a desperate darkness.
Lights hang from the balcony
where gold bars gleam in flickering
shadows.
Ice cream women
with lips
like glass, smile. Behind them, the choir
sings a meaningless, scientific song,
the slot machines blink like many
colored angels
and frozen birds chirp like
tinkling bells.
Night-shift workers sigh
and white fire
falls shimmering from the
glimmering,
plastic
sky.
NIGHT IN THE CITY
Where violins
and violets rust
and radioactive dust is
sifted
from
clouds of daisies, smooth
faced twenty-
somethings laugh
and
shake their beautiful asses.
Plastic buildings wave at
crowds in masks
reminding me of Ensor's Entry
of Christ into Brussels.
Masks hide
masks which
hide less than they reveal as
faces
disappear into the mist and
violins and violets
rust
in the radioactive dust.
INSANE ROBOTS IN THE MEGA-MALL
Insane robots with porcelain eyes
sit in the food court and
sip diet soda through red-striped straws.
They probably cannot see
the flames reflected in their eyes
and in the greasy tears
that fall on hamburger wrappers and fries.
A television is bolted to the wall
in the corner
and
on it, insane robots are dancing
and whirling like tiny tornadoes
across fields of artificial tulips and daisies.
Numbers blink green on the cash register
screen as calculators calculate
and women with bloody lips lick
salt from the gritty tile floor. Stars blink
beyond
spider-web skylights
as needles fall from high broken places
and
pierce porcelain eyes.
IF I WERE TO PAINT THE MADONNA
In a world where violin music scratches
its way out of a hole in the ceiling, familiar
voices reeling
in the squealing
night, rasping at the cornerstone of lust; are
less of a surprise
than butterflies.
When icicles drip
from the fat man's lip
and dinosaur bones laugh in the air like donuts,
then violin music that slips through
a hole in the ceiling seems less out of place than
the mace
on the security guard's Sam Browne.
The human race
is a curse on the lips of a livid
vampire who cannot tear his eyes from the empty
mirror that is cast on the forehead of the damned.
I saw the Madonna dishing up
rigatoni at LaStrada
restaurant, downstairs in Galtier Plaza.
She tossed her head. Her
black hair curled.
Today’s LittleNip:
Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.
—Paul Engle, from an article in The New York Times
___________________
—Medusa, welcoming back Norman Olson, and thanking him for stirring up our Friday with his colorful poems and paintings!
Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.
—Paul Engle, from an article in The New York Times
___________________
—Medusa, welcoming back Norman Olson, and thanking him for stirring up our Friday with his colorful poems and paintings!
Speaking of sitrring things up, tonight from 7-9pm at the Autonomous Love Art Gallery and Adult Boutique on J St. in Sacramento, PJ Gravel and Norelyn Parker will present SALT: Art and Erotic Poetry Reading, a collaboration based on 7 erotic poems. Free; ages 18+. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
Norm at Work
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.