Maurice Oliver
2 poems
**
You Can Be Mortal Now
Daybreak begins as a velveteen morning, but quickly turns into:
-A solemn river of tombstones floating across the border.
-Bell tolls that suddenly resemble a frog's mating call.
-A Dutch dyke scribbling the word "queer" onto wooden shoes.
-Farm boys that learn how to cornball a wolf's cup.
-A sack placed over the head of humanity's embrace.
-Culinary schools mistaken for black birds baked in a pie.
-A derelict part of town mutating into a rusty bicycle chain.
-Sea sickness depicted as a troubled girl with amber hair.
-Garbage that develops wings like a falcon poised for the swoop.
-And sex, treated as if it were just headlines in the morning paper.
**
Romance, Wearing Orthopedic Shoes
The day we met?
Well, I do recall a few things as if it were yesterday. First off, I was wearing
my favorite orthopedic shoes and she had on swollen eyes that required
pushing back into their sockets. I distinctly remember a tattooed road map to
babylon and how it stopped to pick mushrooms along the way, even though
they could be potentially poisonous. My guardian angel was there to offer-up
sheer madness while hers suggested we take the red booth in the far corner
of the lounge. And the odor of nicotine held a hammer-lock on the grim walls.
And the bar stools insisted they were not accustomed to tipping. The bomb
had not been fitted with a clock yet, so Janis wailed from the jukebox and both
the restrooms had ample time to complain about chronic unemployment.
We tried for ninety minutes to put our spectator sports into words and even
declared that we'd give our pets elaborate funerals, but in the end we took
separate commuter trains home, unaware of the vast numbers of cranes that
dotted the cityscape or the smooth violet sky that lurked just outside the
train's windows. And for whatever the reason, we completely ignored the faint
vapor of grandiose self-delusion that whispered, softly, "Replica."
**
return to sawbuck 1.5
**
After almost a decade of working as a freelance photographer in Europe, Maurice Oliver returned to America in 1990. Then, in 1995, he made a life-long dream reality by traveling round the world for eight months. But instead of taking pictures, he recorded the experience in a journal which eventually became poems. And so began his desire to be a poet. His poetry has appeared in numerous national and international publications and literary websites including Potomac Journal, Pebble Lake Review, Taj Mahal Review (India), Dandelion Magazine (Canada), Stride Magazine (UK), and online at thievesjargon.com, interpoetry.com (UK), kritya.com (India), and blueprintreview.de (Germany). His third chapbook, But Mostly, Simple Precautions, was published by LilyLit Press in Nov. 2006. He is the proud editor of a new e-zine called Concelebratory Shoehorn Review. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he dreams of icebergs while working as a private tutor.
**
You Can Be Mortal Now
Daybreak begins as a velveteen morning, but quickly turns into:
-A solemn river of tombstones floating across the border.
-Bell tolls that suddenly resemble a frog's mating call.
-A Dutch dyke scribbling the word "queer" onto wooden shoes.
-Farm boys that learn how to cornball a wolf's cup.
-A sack placed over the head of humanity's embrace.
-Culinary schools mistaken for black birds baked in a pie.
-A derelict part of town mutating into a rusty bicycle chain.
-Sea sickness depicted as a troubled girl with amber hair.
-Garbage that develops wings like a falcon poised for the swoop.
-And sex, treated as if it were just headlines in the morning paper.
**
Romance, Wearing Orthopedic Shoes
The day we met?
Well, I do recall a few things as if it were yesterday. First off, I was wearing
my favorite orthopedic shoes and she had on swollen eyes that required
pushing back into their sockets. I distinctly remember a tattooed road map to
babylon and how it stopped to pick mushrooms along the way, even though
they could be potentially poisonous. My guardian angel was there to offer-up
sheer madness while hers suggested we take the red booth in the far corner
of the lounge. And the odor of nicotine held a hammer-lock on the grim walls.
And the bar stools insisted they were not accustomed to tipping. The bomb
had not been fitted with a clock yet, so Janis wailed from the jukebox and both
the restrooms had ample time to complain about chronic unemployment.
We tried for ninety minutes to put our spectator sports into words and even
declared that we'd give our pets elaborate funerals, but in the end we took
separate commuter trains home, unaware of the vast numbers of cranes that
dotted the cityscape or the smooth violet sky that lurked just outside the
train's windows. And for whatever the reason, we completely ignored the faint
vapor of grandiose self-delusion that whispered, softly, "Replica."
**
return to sawbuck 1.5
**
After almost a decade of working as a freelance photographer in Europe, Maurice Oliver returned to America in 1990. Then, in 1995, he made a life-long dream reality by traveling round the world for eight months. But instead of taking pictures, he recorded the experience in a journal which eventually became poems. And so began his desire to be a poet. His poetry has appeared in numerous national and international publications and literary websites including Potomac Journal, Pebble Lake Review, Taj Mahal Review (India), Dandelion Magazine (Canada), Stride Magazine (UK), and online at thievesjargon.com, interpoetry.com (UK), kritya.com (India), and blueprintreview.de (Germany). His third chapbook, But Mostly, Simple Precautions, was published by LilyLit Press in Nov. 2006. He is the proud editor of a new e-zine called Concelebratory Shoehorn Review. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he dreams of icebergs while working as a private tutor.
