A few early poems by Glenn Lyvers

Shadow in the Garden

She was an incidental earth mother
born of lust like those be-
fore her. Though the passion faded,
the garden erupted anyway.
Things abandoned will grow

in lackluster secret ways,
absent the missing gardener—
day by day, always growing. A sin
for the crops—to be left alone
to grow or wither, up to them.
And when they do grow, gorgeous,

the gardener brags to everyone
who will listen. To such rhetoric
people smile and never question that
they never saw the gardener, garden—
guarding against anything. A lie,

and one told so often
that one comes to believe
the lies of the great gardener
standing amongst the gorgeous,
like a shadow.

____________________________

2000

They said there would be flying cars
today. The year 2000 would be complete-
ly different. Nobody would walk anywhere,
and we would eat food pellets instead of steak.
I remember it, the promise of the year 2000,
and those people who said it

are dead now. They were complaining
that they would never see it, be
amazing. We would just think of something,
POOF! We would all go to outer space
for lunch on the moon. Our cars would go
underwater, on the water and in the air and hover
in our driveways. There would be no killing,
every possible wound or disease would be gone—
patched up instantly.

People could not die in the year 2000. They went
to the grave thinking that.

_____________________

Order For One

She was filling the salt shakers.
Doing the L~o~N~g~P~o~U~r
for the eyes
of a child looking on—gazing really.

And she wondered how she got there,
in that shitty diner, hiding from
the world–serving shitty
plates of greasy meat covered
by brown gravy slopped from the pan
by the dishwater.

She stopped and stood there
beside the stale doughnut rack.
Her eyes glazed over—while
smelly truckers rested
their tired eyes on her sagging tits.

One by one they got up
and went for their rigs.
She heard the chorus
of air breaks releasing
their soulful sighs
before the rigs pulled out
and disappeared.

She stared blankly
out the foggy plexiglas window
while the tiny silver bell
on the door chimed off key
and she muttered,
“That’s the story of my life.”

______________________

Mirage

There was something in how she stood, staring
at herself in the mirror. A German engineer,
admiring the sleek lines, perfectly painted,
as fast as it looks.

I remembered our life, how her fleeting
whims came before my most basal needs,
gorging on life, while I starved, half mad,
a mirage-grasping fool.

Looking beyond her trophy, for an instant,
pleased I was looking too, her smile came
as a crust of bread to a dying man,
sickened by food.

She knew so little of me.
She did not discern my love-drained eyes,
or the trembling of my clenched hands,
empty, wishful-tools.

I resolved to leave her shining reflection,
and the idea that I might take one crumb
by my own volition would light the cold fire,
but I did, spitefully loot.

My eyes searched the treasured-hearth,
passing over diamonds, gold and spender,
to what glittered most. I took the mirror,
and walked out the door.

___________________

Television

I yearn for the friendlier, yellow windows of my youth – hidden
now behind insulated shrouds. My new window displays
a neutral faith – like Sunday’s empty mailboxes.

My fingers grasp the rubbery umbilical, pressing buttons
in contractions, pushing my head through the tender window
in the radiant, numbing, mindless-portal, …away.

Click, Click, Click…

(Chorus)
Network puppeteers, my melancholy masters – feeding my head…
Viagra for Dave, with erect whims wearing latex skin – once dead.
Weather reports thunder while death wanders into our schools.
Bernie Mac and Phil Hartman roll over again – you fools.
Diets drip from the glass with caloric retreats.
“Saving souls for donations” – God’s in the receipts.

Click, Click, Click…

In my sweet absence, time slips into the prodigious abyss, with
commercial breaks for bloody news flashes of car crashes;
like reddish wormy-prose, rhyming into my mind.

I have a world in my window, like a value meal number two,
until I close my wooden eyes, wishing to never leave
that place, and whispering in restless-sleep, …escape.

__________________________

When She is Coming

Coming to love him
would change the way she sees.
She would notice that he knows
how she takes her noodles,
the way he takes shorter steps
in the snow when she follows,
and how he hands her
a handkerchief before she knows
her sneeze is coming.

Coming to love him, she could see
the way he sees the sea

when she is coming,

the way blue waves bear yellow sky
– when she is coming –
And the yellow
– how brilliant and buoyant –
like ripened bananas against blueberries.

She would know he never saw yellow
before she was coming.

_____________________

Take Out

November had feet,

And cold fire-despair.
Dogs lost—being Chinese
And aroused by strange breath,
Pitiable half-swaggers
In the black and white streets
of midtown Manhattan.
Locomotives with imperceptible
rhythm making way through
Corners and short cuts
And long cuts, and le~e~ry-cuts.
The mottled noises of cold-dead
Pads sciff and scuttle to
Luigis.