Monday, September 30, 2013

Jennifer Lagier- Three Poems

Celebrating my 64th Birthday in the Dead Zone
 
The Boardroom bass beat
stuns eardrums a block away.
Flat screen TVs illuminate
a fenced courtyard.
Four young women stuffed
into black dresses smoke,
gossip at a cement picnic table.
The front door security guy
doesn’t bother checking my ID,
looks at wrinkles, greying hair,
waves me inside.
A wall of jolting music assaults,
insults the senses.
Twenty-something men line
the bar; trolling females
cluster optimistically
around bistro counters.
Red lights pulse within
a glass mezzanine where
the DJ spins disc after disc
of seething cacophony,
no discernible lyrics.
It’s 93 degrees,
night of Yom Kippur,
drinks and indiscretions abound,
not a person atoning.
 
line: they like to test us
 
 
Survivalist
 
It’s three a.m.,
hours since the crash
of pictures torn from wall,
something slammed,
cursing, screams,
then a thrown bottle.
I’d go down to plead,
but it’s never wise
to get that close
while Irish whiskey’s
still flowing,
dope pipe and cannabis
next to a tangle of cables,
black game controllers.
 
Soon you’ll be nodding off,
releasing my clenched heart,
allowing the dogs and me
to breathe easy, offer thanks
behind our locked door.
Sleep comes to erase
another night in the war zone,
arms me to survive
like a guardian angel.
 
 
Cognitive Dissonance
 
He reads the restraining order,
thinks, “She must be kidding.”
He shoots up testosterone,
steroids, knocks back
a couple cans of Red Bull.
Angrily jumps
into his Hummer,
tracks her down.
Just before their driveway,
intercepts her moving car.
He honks, watches as she
locks the doors,
screams into a cell phone.
When six cops in
two police cars arrive,
he impatiently tells them
“This is just a mistake;
she’s confused.
I’ll tell her to explain,
clear it all up.”
He is still shoving
and yelling
as officers apply Tasers,
then handcuffs,
wrestle his thrashing,
muscle-bound body
onto to the ground.
 
 
Jennifer Lagier’s lounge entourage usually includes a bevy of arm candy snakes, preferably alive, but with enough pinot noir, dead can work too.

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