BUFFALO AND MARSHMALLOWS

                         by

                       JOHN YAU


     Postmodern Culture v.4 n.2 (January, 1994)
                pmc@unity.ncsu.edu

     Copyright (c) 1994 by John Yau, all rights reserved. 
     This text may be used and shared in accordance with the
     fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be
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     University Press.



It's an old glory when a toenail crocodile 
named Greta Gabo

boasts that any tall
thumb tucking

pimple popper
still in touch

with the bottom of his atavistic roots
will soon be rented out

to the King of pencil Toads
and his last iron caravan

Dairy wolves howl 
at empty spoon

while I sleep in black mall
lily padded trailer park

answer the second
second

I'm stalled in a parallel stupor
squeezed between

red hurt of a fall potato
and blue stones of a part-time seed shifter

I'm one of the jilted
eager to bite the crust

I plead with what's left of the steam engine
because I know it's soft pajamas

being one of the flies
A free sample sniffing around

the tattered drums of the effluvial honey
You get to count creamy blots and carpet burns

transmit grains of junked passion
to the weekend handwarmers

west of Sandusky, Ohio 
adopted home of tormented petal pushers

one charm boxers and retired log nuts 
the whole glad parking lot of idle fun seekers

You even score the church fire
and pray to the invisible camera

You get down on your full grown knees 
and you begin to stay

In better times, I lived on a bingo farm
ate off a checkerboard

Each morning, I baked out the stains
and flicked drivel into the yard