Ode to Neon
This poem appears in Granville and Granville: 20th Anniversary Edition, Expanded & Revised.
they took your lover's pearls
to work them in a frame
of drinking nights,
inside glass lengths
of crystal tubing
each drop milkywhite
glistened on the table
so that in slicing the eye
they were able
to make their work an art
it shriveled in the light
before it burst
collected in petri dishes
the pearl lay liquid
gas
waiting for customers' wishes
soon to come
XXX
99¢
OPEN 24/7
all the same really
rude honest
speaking freely
the new frontiersman
wears a bitter rainbow
on his sleeve
twisted smiles bow down
to ignorance's liege
noblesse oblige
sunday parks
Helium
the dissonance of comic books
with passionless crime
Radon
Xenon
Krypton
Argon
Neon
make empty rhyme
and pretty looks
on nights when I sense
loss of moral strength
cut down to size
I suck your love
out of glass lengths
with my eyes