Moon
She’s found another let in the night sky—
Whereas once she could buy the lot!
In some impermanent firmament
A constellation of walls (the fourth is broken)
That lets out air and keeps in smoke
While she gets on chewing scenery.
Her moon isn’t made of cheese
Nor aluminum, nor calcium, nor chromium
Nor iron, nor magnesium, nor manganese
Nor silicon or titanium—
But corn syrup, corn starch
And natural and artificial flavors.
Though a tower can rise up to God
You’ll search in vain for just one 13th floor
When a little drop is all it takes—
For she knows how and when to say
Je ne regrette rien
In all the Romance languages.
Welcome
Enlightened people
Never darken my door—
No hot heavyweight
Knocks me cold.
No upper cut
To the lower gut
Or Kiss of Life
Or kiss of death.
Garland the threshold
With bright buddleia—
The social butterflies
Will never see the light.
Poem for a Day
One million years
Before Planet of the Apes
Raquel Welch peeled a grape
And the whole Judeo-Christian thing
Went into overdrive.
We had one minute
Left to get it on—
One minute not sixty
To get sexy
And save the world.
Now evolution
And all its permutations
Can only fill in
Half the crossword puzzle
Half a schlimazel.
One million years
After Back to the Future
I can say with the utmost confidence
That you are not you
That I am not I.
That this world is not the world
You imagined
Or remembered—
That you are not going to Hell
That you are not going to Heaven.
That you are going
Nowhere at all
And that you are going there
Incredibly fast—
Indeed you are already there.
Billions and billions of phone booths
And not a single one
Will take your dime—
You extend a paw
And say, what is a dime?
What is a phone booth?
What is Heaven? What is Hell?
Who was Raquel Welch?
I’ve seen Back to the Future
Literally trillions of times.
James Dufficy is an Irish and American citizen living in London and working as a sub-editor on a medical journal. Recent poems have appeared in Blackbox Manifold (UK) and The Gay & Lesbian Review (US).
