ESP: A Poem

Poetry / By / / 1 minute of reading

The next table must be
  talking about Bushy's
State of the Union last
  night--

"the Joint Chiefs even
       jumped up and down"

*

the arbitrary
           spur

        of
            excitement

*

Academic Lunch

Women have more subtle
        antennae .

I'm "working" on my salad
       greens.

  Not even a glance at her ambiguous
       ring finger
alerts her -- prior glance

   spiky moussed
    hair

  then attractive
      bone cage -- yes,

                              +
I will come
back (i promise the Self)
                              to
check --

Is it a class ring? engagement?

MAR-
 RIA-GE?

*

hound

*

But ...

(the self remonstrates
  w/the Self)

she's NOT
    MY TYPE !

*

Downloaded
  into physical
     form

"I" have to larf.

   ESP?

  How is it
     supposed
       to help?

*

She disappointingly
   resorts

to Waitress reassuring code cliche -- Enjoy!

*

Not my waitress.
I cannot go across, reassuringly
   make small talk.

Her antennae are delicate,
        accurate

to the keenest
      portals of

dog-desire. She knows.

I will walk back coolly to the john,
    I enter the kitchen
tell Willy his crab-stuffed mushrooms
today are exceptional,
    non pareil.

She notes my delicate glance aside,
   sparing her

the customary
    macho dog heaviness,

the Bushy assault.

About The Author

jim mc curry, b. 10-3-43 in hawthorne (los angeles) california, has taught at carl sandburg college since 1980, in poetry & philosophy; since recently going online, his links include Big City Lit, Cyber Oasis, Drought, and Snow Monkey—ten poems in all, four of which now appear at the websites of the first two zines just named. His philosophical interests center on nonduality: especially maha ati, dzogchen, or madhyamika. (David Loy's recent study, NONDUALITY, is a convenient handle.) For example, "the man" includes Huang-po, Yun-men, Dogen. The trouble with What Is Enlightenment is the dubious assumption that we can think our way to enlightenment, or that there is truly conscious evolution, 'progress,' rather than recovery of primordial innocence/happiness. In this respect, contrary to some of his best friends, actually, Jim is somewhat skeptical of Andrew Cohen's work, and Ken Wilbur's—not to say the work of Eckhart Tolle, let's say. The literary interests include V. Woolf, B. Cendrars, Lydia Davis, Knut Hamsun, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Casares and Borges, Marquez, Neruda, William Carlos Williams, Jack Collom. I think that's enough indication. O yes, Pessoa. Jim has a granfalloon of masks, some of whom are becoming heteronyms, mebbe: Baron Axel Angst, Ramadooly Foofoo, H. Pumphrey Smogrove, and the most fully realized of all, Dogwag Bummerstead, PhD, aka Old Dog. email: jmccurry@csc.cc.il.us
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