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Janet Jackson
Skeleton
Bring to mind a nylon garden
and a paper bird-bath.
A lead bird with four wings
and a plastic gardener with aniseed eyes.
Do you like it?
Imagine a melamine desert
and steel tumbleweeds.
A bald saloon with rubber walls
and a silicon bartender with margarine lips.
Do you like it?
Will you eat here?
Do you like your restaurant?
Can you see your name
on your chair
where your hot skeleton waits
for its chemicals?
Bring to mind a Jell-O cubicle
with a painted view.
A fur television with fifty screens
and a holographic prostitute with no legs.
Do you like it?
Will you stay here?
Do you like your hotel?
Can you see your needle
on your table
where your tainted skeleton shakes
for its input?
Imagine a titanium bathroom
a velour phone
and a three-armed valet with corduroy hair.
This will be yours. Do you like it?
Unavoidable
Swan.
Unthinkable beauty in that black neck.
That tight body, ski feet,
small-brained head.
Cat.
Unstretchable beauty in those essential eyes,
ancient silent walk, springloaded pause,
silken hackles.
Moth.
Untouchable beauty in those dusted wings.
That startling width, torpedo abdomen,
phototropic rush.
Man.
Unavoidable beauty in that aggressive skull,
self-referential ego, deaf buttocks,
ever-watchful penis.
Way over here in Australia
On TV, they're repeating Billy Connolly,
with his Britain, Ireland, Scotland travelogue.
His comedy, art, respect.
I have a book from the library.
British, Irish, Scottish poetry since 1945.
Cold moors and stones and canals.
Old wars, prisons, suicides.
Women both hopeless and whimsical.
The democratic voice.
The Irish poets resonate like a bell in my head.
The British poets explode like a shell in my bed.
The Scottish poets? They just leave me for dead.
Copyright © Janet Jackson