John Yau
Supermarket Blues
1.
There are fewer syllables to learn now that love
Has shrunken into a smaller project, and cold fronts
Have departed, all bundled up, like yesterday’s cravings
I began drawing what I saw in bathroom mirrors
Sans my face, wishing to record the fabricated world
I had been passing through, a reptile curd on its way to heaven
Record this printed world where trees are photography cylinders
From another century, where cars do not crowd streets
And planes do not do their best to poison pockets of air
Record that singular isolation you feel in a supermarket
While carefully placing shitake and oyster mushrooms
In their respective plastic bags, thinking: what
Gook of gobble have I become in this embalmed
Corridor, outlandish playroom, badly programmed acre
2.
Round green sky brimming with clobber
Another fleet of ogling scowls takes up residence
What will you do with this shabby body
Neighbors abhor, nobody wants to sleep next to
Are you stricken bleak by these macaroni choices
Want to step up to the gate and place your fear
Inside its pearl inlaid trays of warm ash
Starve, freeze and feed your long-lost egg
In bean counting dispensary fish pond
Share morning glory ice cream lanterns
In lingering spar, not that keeping your
Underwear world hot enough is the only goal
Do you feel your life is not worth stealing
Call it a poem, if you like, it still won’t yelp
3.
When I crawl out the window and begin to speak to you
When your secret door is actually a refrigerator
A chemically enhanced reinforced stash ceiling
Call this version a Las Vegas drive-thru
Magnifying all you can be beaten by
Blowing bubble balloons on a unicorn’s horn
Ordered to grow thinner in valleys of white sunlight
Old forehead reclined on cactus yellow napalm tree
Didn’t you used to be a hot neanderthal horn player,
Not your average grinning bowl of sludge porridge
Who is in charge of replica control got a rodent problem
Followed by a long stretch of making no difference
Sunlight’s floundering succession of attempts
You got any interest in my latest set of Marco Polo condoms
1.
There are fewer syllables to learn now that love
Has shrunken into a smaller project, and cold fronts
Have departed, all bundled up, like yesterday’s cravings
I began drawing what I saw in bathroom mirrors
Sans my face, wishing to record the fabricated world
I had been passing through, a reptile curd on its way to heaven
Record this printed world where trees are photography cylinders
From another century, where cars do not crowd streets
And planes do not do their best to poison pockets of air
Record that singular isolation you feel in a supermarket
While carefully placing shitake and oyster mushrooms
In their respective plastic bags, thinking: what
Gook of gobble have I become in this embalmed
Corridor, outlandish playroom, badly programmed acre
2.
Round green sky brimming with clobber
Another fleet of ogling scowls takes up residence
What will you do with this shabby body
Neighbors abhor, nobody wants to sleep next to
Are you stricken bleak by these macaroni choices
Want to step up to the gate and place your fear
Inside its pearl inlaid trays of warm ash
Starve, freeze and feed your long-lost egg
In bean counting dispensary fish pond
Share morning glory ice cream lanterns
In lingering spar, not that keeping your
Underwear world hot enough is the only goal
Do you feel your life is not worth stealing
Call it a poem, if you like, it still won’t yelp
3.
When I crawl out the window and begin to speak to you
When your secret door is actually a refrigerator
A chemically enhanced reinforced stash ceiling
Call this version a Las Vegas drive-thru
Magnifying all you can be beaten by
Blowing bubble balloons on a unicorn’s horn
Ordered to grow thinner in valleys of white sunlight
Old forehead reclined on cactus yellow napalm tree
Didn’t you used to be a hot neanderthal horn player,
Not your average grinning bowl of sludge porridge
Who is in charge of replica control got a rodent problem
Followed by a long stretch of making no difference
Sunlight’s floundering succession of attempts
You got any interest in my latest set of Marco Polo condoms
John Yau has published books of poetry, fiction, and criticism. His latest poetry publications include a book of poems, Further Adventures in Monochrome (Copper Canyon Press, 2012), and the chapbook, Egyptian Sonnets (Rain Taxi, 2012). His most recent monographs are Catherine Murphy (Rizzoli, 2016), the first book on the artist, and Richard Artschwager: Into the Desert (Black Dog Publishing, 2015). He has also written monographs on A. R. Penck, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. In 1999, he started Black Square Editions, a small press devoted to poetry, fiction, translation, and criticism. He was the Arts Editor for the Brooklyn Rail (2007–2011) before he began writing regularly for Hyperallergic. He is a Professor of Critical Studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University).