Three Poems by Paul M. Strohm

'leaps with an awakening sound'

'leaps with an awakening sound'
    seems generational
    seems a ghastly obsolete
'bankrupt master, a fallen angel.'

'would that the ship Argos had never sailed,'
    symbolizing what,
    meaning that if
'perforated with holes,'

'what can they understand,'
    after all these words,
    fated to pass away
'our unofficial view of being.'

'flesh is weak but love'
    makes a myth permanent,
    wandering on waves
'he was but a good man.'



A Curse of a Sensuous Chair

Chair scrolling a metamorphic exaggeration
   a sensuous image
   a roundness heightened
   a curve within boundaries
   a slow moving line
   white and blue arms
   a grasping arm
   grasping and opening
   a darken background
   a thinness
   a thickness
   a stretching arm
   woman and man entwined
   a sudden hesitation
   hesitating and starting
   a soft pink lightness
   a briefness
   a shrillness
   a tendering arm



All the Bad Assed Bananas Have Spoiled

All the bad assed bananas have spoiled
their brown skins peeled
tossed out near Catholic thrift shops
attracting only the vomit of flies

These curving yellow pleasure wrappers
one hole in and no holes out
disgorged upon by cossack clowns
torn, sticky, evidence of carnal sin

Shared treasure trove for a kid's buck
dispensed within a rowdy gang
sculling dirty magazines for information
monogamous hands a guy's last friend

Each afternoon the streets are cleaned
All that's left is the next boy's dream.

Paul M. Strohm is a freelance journalist working in Houston, Texas.  His poems have appeared in HuKmag.com, the Berkeley Poets Cooperative, The Lake, WiND, and other literary outlets.  His first collection of poems entitled Closed on Sunday is scheduled to be published in late 2013 by the Wellhead Press.