Three Poems
Christian Peet

Hippodamus

created the grid city: identical interchangeable blocks

& Jack wore fuzzy socks

around his house
collected handbooks

read in bed.
"The public space is not for relaxation"

or environmental awareness

in the strict aesthetic sense
"but civic awareness."

You settle a town you better believe
there are things sacred

at the core: church, town hall, even the general

store must be site-specific,
closed & empty, mute in the square.

O, maunder the green
at your leisure but beware

the sign: The tree we planted isn't here

for fruit or friends but hanging
ropes and cutting down, for fear of fun.

Lean

One rainbow touches down in old town &
We don't go home for hours.

Wading frightful in the landfill
(Smoking lichen, a deadwood grin)

While the tower café crumbles
Having never let us in.

Born criminal, bored by subliminals
We lean

Staring blindly at the matrimony
Accidental, like we mean

To order calamari &
Commence to bubbling gin.

Low tide on the docks,
Stoned, pissing in the wind

Checking out the scene
As if to form a plan, or drown for fun.

False Dawn

All Laconia incandescent
patchwork clouds, velvet

and rust hues soaking the queen futon,
she leaves her body where it dreams

legions of hikers tour her town
park abandoned in the early 'eighties

(railroad ties for stairs, handrails
of pressure-treated two-by-four

now rumored cancerous when wet.)
The Guide's voice trembles

pointing out buff feldspars fractured
at right angles, sugary quartzite

chunks, pink granite glacial
caprice tossed into the gorge

(-errata now spraypainted
day-glow orange in memory

of Jack, drowned drinking-buddy
and young Tess, a four-star fuck-)

while squirrels cavort in pine
as if on fire

and a voice in the mountains calls
"Good morning and good luck."

1996 © 2003