Lucía M. Polis The Poetry of

This poem appears in We Were Hateful People.

it took nine hundred sixty eight full days
for me to understand what I had written

poor maximus has had to learn the simplest
last  well by that measure bitten truly am

the king of my regards  oh but the ei it must
excuse the mind as it is dry and astigmatic

beset and buried in the attic  collected
picked and plucked  cogito ergo fucked


   hugs are biodegradable
   nonrefundable
   recyclable
   reusable

while her ei is risible
   negotiable  culpable
      excusable and divisible
          diffusible  really quite unusable


the alps they reign over this cursed metropolis
and still i'd rather live and die in burnaby

than hear another soulful paltry homily
about the ways in which she managed carnally

a respite from our well festooned necropolis
a liberation from forbidden openness

another fine wrought golden brokenness
another masculine anomaly


and so i am obliged to total disaccord
with her perplexity when it transfigures

   there's nothing wrong with repetition
   there's nothing wrong with repetition
   there's nothing wrong with repetition
   there's nothing wrong with repetition
   there's nothing wrong with repetition
   or the familiar


time and tide wait for nomen  no matter
her glower will flower  so i j'adoube

the obverse of her smile   the faded
albumen of her long suff'ring yen

i fear she'll never apprehend that ain't
a grasping iewish brute with face of jute

though i oft see a rending tenderness
within  the fervour of her timid horror


lies gentle flatness  were it not for teeth
of gold  i could forgive the money

i could forgive the madneſs  but alas
we all must modernize our models of reality

and let the gesso dry  what's left  you take
your broken oars and you walk shoreward

palms shining forward  you sip your
latte and you count your trophies
                                                  (sigh  namaste yogis