Flood

The archipelago of green highway signs
floats below my shuddering sheep.
Will my ramshackle ark remain unbroken?

My crops have already drowned.
The verdant tips of my dead turnips
are seaweed to this shallow ocean.

Even my rusty tractor, its red metal drifting
half-submerged,
migrates to the sunset’s city.

  Aaron Morris__
__________

Ode to a Very Tasty Sandwich

Your tomatoes are like lines from an E. E. Cummings poem,
affirming what is yes through what was strange,
seemingly unthinkable. My scarlet muses ride in green
lettuce to my eager mouth, its saliva kissing you.
Though you lack any creamy dairy products,
your bread is practically a cheese unto itself,
and many a bovine who stared at your grainy skin,
cast in the hue and delicacy of mozzarella, would nod
in approval. You shed mayonnaise, your white
blood cells rushing to defend my
taste buds from ill tidings.
Crunching into your ham, I think of PETA
and its support of artificial meat. I can only
wish that laboratories hasten their magic
so that this sweet pink substance
may herald the here and now
with the loudest humanists
and without the taint of any death
anywhere. The test tubes are spires
to the laboring scientist’s cathedral.
As he mixes their muscle cells
into the broth, he stares down at
the pigs, hungry in appetite
and curiosity, while they stand before
their trough, a pew for a late congregation.
His priest’s collar as white
and dapper as his open coat,
he preached, “Fear not, holy swine!
The kingdom of heaven shall come
without cannibalism!”
My tale of the lab must have bored you,
for I don’t see you anywhere.
Sitting in my kitchen, I can only wait for your return.

  Aaron Morris__

Another World Is Possible

The monster that can’t be defeated here,
the sedimentary tentacles concealed
within the river near the mountain,
invading our bodies, choking our cells
after we drank the poison from the mines.

The monster that can’t be defeated here,
its chest the drying land of climate change,
the scales throughout its scales deceiving us
into thinking grains of wheat could penetrate
the armor, only to see our spear tips break.

The monster that can’t be defeated here.
The only weapon that will work is there,
whatever theres are gathered near the here.
This there, that there, the other there arise,
adhering to the creature like the hairs

that catch a bug on a leaf of the butterwort
to which the souls of dying buttercups
had transmigrated. Past the skeleton
the monster leaves behind in the desert,
the crops begin to grow. We start to breathe.

  Aaron Morris__

© Elsie Deliz: ''La Cantante'' mixed media 18''X24''

Why There Are No Toasters

Friedrich Nietzsche’s reborn
as a melting butter stick
in a messy apartment.

He hears a man in the hallway
testify that lightning is not just
a flash to the one it strikes.

Nietzsche tries to write down this idea
that he had not considered,
but the pencil slips from his grasp.

He cries, and his tears are bread.
They absorb him until he becomes
one with the stale goods.

As for me, a TV antenna,
I’ve spent years listening to people
in specials talk of being one’s self.
Do they know that can mean
being one with change?

As a biscuit near the TV set,
Nietzsche reflects on the actions
of the static named Rosa.

She’s solid and deep, much like an electric
scarecrow caught in tall grass,
yet her waves still fluctuate.

Nietzsche asks me, “Is this just a dream?
Is this just somebody’s drug trip?
Why do I sound like René Descartes?
Is that appropriate
for this circumstance?”

  Aaron Morris__