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Ten Poems
by Pete Lee

 

like sunflowers
bending to feed
on you/r dreams at
one end Vienna
sausage toes
at the other
night of the
upright fans

Kansas: predawn
(as seen by Grey
hound) the long
est word i
n the world high
lighted & under
lined (that con
tains no let
ters)

people with twelve flashing
repeatedly from one eye
zero zero flashing from the other
plead silently to be reset

microwave popcorn haiku
pop. pop. pop, pop, pop,
poppoppoppoppoppoppop
pop, pop, pop. pop. pop.

Temporal Panhandler
Brother, have you
got a minute?

there
here
to a "t"

life on the outskirts
of the city of oneself
is an absence of inskirts
although this is a mere parallel
sort of like a frontage road

Hushed Voices
I dreamed I put together a poetry anthology entitled Hushed Voices. Each of the pages was blank; all of them had been submitted by established poets.
One reviewer praised my "keen editor's eye". Another raved, "If you're fed up with bad poetry, you'll love this collection!" "The poems are similarly haiku-like in their enlistment of silence, yet each stands on its own," mused a third.
Some people bought the book just to have it on their shelves. Others were attracted by the "name" contributors listed on the dust jacket, and actually read the entire compilation. A few -- the quiet ones -- were able to recite from it without once moving their lips.

Dream Clips
Even your psychiatrist has to shoot up before he can see you. He thinks of you as his two o'clock, of a certain color-coded syringe as his one-fifty-nine. And you wonder why he's always nodding... And how come your mother's suddenly insisting you call before dropping by? And why's she hiding the turkey baster?
I carry an enormous flashlight into the deep, winding cave of my life. I switch it on, but instead of illumination I get the teeth-tingling whine and wrist-twisting recoil of a rock drill.
My bedroom’s crowded with invisible lawyers. Some I have on retainer, some I don’t. I know that if I sneeze I’ll break my neck. I wonder who’ll defend me if I sue myself... Ah... Ah...

i, illuminatus
i dreamed i saw a ufo
from directly below
a sky from which god
had fled
it looked like a lit-up
novelty hat
you'd get for christmas
& bury in your closet
now i am among
the marked men:
illuminated
alienated

Copyright © 2006 Pete Lee

Pete Lee lives in a small town in the Mojave Desert. His poetry has appeared most recently in Perigee, Mastodon Dentist, Main Channel Voices, Right Hand Pointing, and AntiMuse.