Jim Behrle
Three Poems
I Can No Longer Be Friends with Professors
my navel will grow ferocious teeth and eat your familythat’s *it*, I’m switching to proseI leave it all in your hands, magic party whore
everything depends upon the wheelbarrow
crammed up your ass or into the back of your Saab
though inside I remain a fluffy sobbing dandelion
this is great / I don’t feel threatened by you at all
the air is purple and alive again
the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme is playing
now I remember where I know you from: The DSM IV
with that pvc taste in my mouth
in the future we’ll sleep in aquariums podcasting
my love for you was a tasty bird to eat
while you were grading papers / sucking on tweed
isn’t it strange the things we have to do to bodies to excite them
I adored the blurb you gave me so much
I wrote you a thank you blurb, all in italics
now sitting cross-legged in the faculty parking lot
the sky the color of tenure
conifers and elk-upchuck envigorating the pine-scented conservatism
nothing ma! no, we’re not enriching uranium!
oh only in dreams do I get to relapse
Fantasy Answer Encyclical
I want to shock you in a wine & cheese kind of wayI want to lie with Louise Glück in the back of a pick-up trück
My poems shall rule for 1000 years
For I schmooze hardcore
Chrysanthemum this!
Egret of the swooning noon
Your glasses will be ready in about an hour
Echo Charlie Bravo Sabbatical
Ass camaro hit my work study
I soooo wanna headbutt somebody
My mom farted in your mom’s ear
Now give me a grant
What’s my secret?
Being non-threatening, blandly friendly and benign
At all times
Did I mention this is a pantoum?
Mediocre poets will always rule
And I shall be their Prince Albert
Because baby you smell like a Guggenheim
This Connection of Everyone With Juliana Spahr
Totally fill me with kids / “makes me laugh when I’m with you”Dirty aardvark / dirty dolphin / dirty koala / man-eating panda
I want to *hit* that shit
Greenpoint Station filthy alit
Our mouth against the junk / thus swells the boring beautiful chello
“I was gonna kill that bitch Desdemona anyway”
You always devastate me / and nothing is rhyming
The USA manufactures Wasted Lives
Dead eagles / dead dirty martians / dirty half-dead wife
In the dream I make out with Barry Manilow
Amid the inescapable vanilla maw of men against women
I swallow everything / puke twice on my mother
Sorry I blew off your panel
Chased by undead tigers / undead zebras / refried beans
I have never belonged to anyone
And time is running out