Interrobang | Thomas Piekarski

Had only the storied shores
of exotic Tasmania
inched a bit closer
the showers that sheeted
downtown Monterey streets
would not have caused
such untimely gloom
among the motley multitude
of sidewalk quilt merchants
who toughed out rugged
April storm strafe
ultimately compelled
to pack up and head home
disappointed after
an unfortunately
profitless afternoon.

Now above the gaping
doorway of electrified
Britannia Arms
the wary blue heron
stands guard,
oversees its brood
of gangly offspring.

That heron vigilant,
scans the dark sky
mindful of foraging
hawks and eagles
that loiter on high.

Bivouac: caw of kamikaze
egret sears the fringes
of a palm that shadows
Turtle Bay Taqueria
at dusk’s genesis.

Turtle Bay mightily lit—
kaleidoscopic fluorescent
beer sign colors
prance, convulse,
shimmer, take flight,
launched from ghostly
glucose windows.

Proposition: all artists
are pluralist masochists.

Hypothesis: nobody you know
enjoys the glee of weightlessness
more than me.

Postulate: America strains,
grossly overweight.

America petulant
woolly mammoth with which
I daily break camp.

Indian Review | Author | Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. Read his poems on Indian Review.

Indian Review | Author | Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry and interviews have appeared in Nimrod, Portland Review, Kestrel, Cream City Review, Poetry Salzburg, Boston Poetry Magazine, Gertrude, The Bacon Review, and many others. He has published a travel guide, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems.