Santa Fe Poetry Broadside
Issue #6, January, 1999 : -- -1 -2 -3 -4  5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13
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Questions and Answers

Mark Matthiessen

                 

Questions and Answers

If I were an artist I would paint flowers.
I always order something not on the menu.
If I were an artist I would paint children.
I sometimes get excited for no reason.
I am a special agent of God.
I sometimes see people, animals and things that others don't see.
I loved my father.
I sometimes don't sleep for three or four days.
Sometimes I don't tell the truth.
I like science.
Someone is trying to poison me.
I like tall women.
I am a special agent of God.

           --from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test


ANSWERS

If I were an artist I would paint flowers.
Sometimes I get so excited I think I couldn't paint flowers at all,
       I could only paint children painting flowers, that way
       I wouldn't get so excited.
Or even if I did,
       I'd have a reason.
I like science but I do sometimes not tell the truth.
Sometimes I can't sleep for three or four days.
I hear sounds other people don't hear but that's because
       I'm awake and they're asleep.
I hear the sounds of pigeon wings folding on the window.
I hear God laughing and it sounds like a question
       with the last word cut off.
Sometimes I crawl across the kitchen floor on my belly
       imagining I'm a mutated salamander
       and I see things others don't.
I see the dust too fine to slide up the cracked plastic pan.
I see the dime jthat stuck to the place
       where the honey dripped
       teddy bear jar castrated by mice.
I see the spatula that fell off the drainboard
 and got stuck between counter and fridge.
I see the corpse of an angel
       that couldn't see the glass
       and got smashed
       trying to fly out
       from my daily life.
I like tall women, the taller the better
       the ones that are bigger than parks
       and feed off the treetops
       compete with giraffes.
I loved my father and sometimes
       I don't always not tell the truth.
If I were an artist I would be
       too excited to paint,
       I would teach flowers
       to paint children but
I don't get excited, I am a special agent of God,
I teach flowers to see and children to bloom.
I always order something not on the menu
       like the waiter
       or the illegal Salvadorian busboy
       serve him up on a platter serve him with a clean apron
       and a garnish of rubbers
       I am a special agent
I am a special agent of God,
       my mission to sit still
       and endlessly spew words
       from my ears
I am just
       another Cassandra
       mad prophecies
       clear the sun


Copyright © 1999 Mark Matthiessen.

About the poet and
about Are We There Yet?.

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Issue #6, January, 1999 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.