Six more half serious poems by Raymond Federman

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Advice for Older Men | American Dream | The Other Country |

Another Failure | The Jupiter Fanfare | In the End

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 ADVICE FOR OLDER MEN
 
 look  at young women
  in a defined  way
  in the way
 you looked
  at young women
  when you your
 self were young
 
 that is:  with frank
 determined lust, 
 the total question being 
 what can you do
 to get your self
 between her self
 

 					
 AMERICAN DREAM
 
 every morning after breakfast
 the family gathers in the garage
 to mumble their daily quota
 of admiration & veneration
 to their two chevrolets
 while on the television
 an old wrinkled actor
 out of work
 pledges allegiance
 to Budweiser							
 
 

 
 
 THE OTHER COUNTRY
 
 There are no doors
 no windows here
 you enter from the wings
 where living hurts
 you drag yourself to the center
 you crouch
 under a grey canvas sky
 and you wait
 near a dead tree
 until they come to beat you blue
 to stone you half-dead
 then you crawl inside a wooden box
 to sleep it off
 your bones dry of marrow
 dust in your mouth
 sometimes you hear voices in your head
 or the croaking of frogs
 in the morning before the pale sun
 you perform the gymnastics of the mind
 doubled-up like a centaur
 and you wait
 you wait for the shy moon
 to roll into a ball before you
 movement a heresy
 but one day another man comes
 who carries his life in his hands
 he too must perform
 so the day can be saved
 even if the moon never returns
 and laughing is a painful process
 
                                                  

 
 ANOTHER FAILURE
 
 Last night in total despair
 he tried to commit suicide
 by slashing his wrist
 with an electric razor
 

 
 THE JUPITER FANFARE
 
 Best comment heard
 from ecstatic astronomer
 when fragments G & K
 hit Jupiter:  It was massive. 
 
 But poor fragment Q1
 did not make the fanfare
 it missed Jupiter
 by 350.000 kilometers
 & disappeared into space
 to wander forever
 in the great darkness
 at the speed of light
 

 
 IN THE END
 
 Some die heroically
 on the battlefield
 others defiantly
 by jumping off a cliff
 but many die
 unexpectedly
 in their sleep
 without knowing it
 while a great number
 go in fear
 and cowardliness
 in hospital wards
 very few depart
 unashamedly
 without resisting
 but me I want to die
 just like that
 without enthusiasm