Donovan Miyasaki

REALITY TELEVISION

they executed Mr. Rogers today
for corrupting the youth and welcoming
terrorists into the neighborhood

he volunteered to take the hemlock
but they refused calling the offer an
inexcusable display of arrogance

on MTV schoolchildren are building
snowmen from ashes and Johnny Cash is calling
down the apocalypse

he says he’ll see me in hell
then breaks into a rousing
version of “We’ll Meet Again”

I can’t tell if he’s singing about his
gallows or ours and if he’s siding with
the accused or the executioner

they applaud when Donnie Darko
does not just foresee the end but ensures
its safe arrival

like he’s some sort of Dorothy
and the dream is so bad he wishes he’d never
been awake to begin with

they say retro is the new mod
that our only additional years are
in the other direction

as if they know where
it’s all going and aren’t even trying
not to go there anymore

and it sounds more like prayer than fear

I may not be the happy
go lucky type but these days I seem to be stuck
in the role of little orphan Annie

the only one left who still wants
the sun to come out
tomorrow or however
long it takes

 

SIX NON-POEMS

QUID PRO QUOD

Ceci n’est pas un ceci.

SOME GOOD NEWS AND SOME BAD NEWS

The human species will never go extinct. Otherwise, what will the insects eat?

REPEAT AFTER ME

some things must be said twice
before they get through

some things must be said twice
before they get through

ANSWER KEY

Q: Where did the universe come from?
A: The Big Bang

Q: Where did life come from?
A: Interplanetary bacteria

Q: Where did humans come from?
A: Their parents

THE PROBLEM OF ORIGINS

Begin and end are concepts without empirical verification.

FOR THE LAST TIME

some things are worth saying twice
some things are worth saying twice
nothing is worth saying three times

 

TWO LETTERS

LETTER TO SAM

Barb has a fish named Tyco Brahe.
He enjoys eating the pebbles in his fish bowl.
People like pets cause pets eat funny stuff.

I bought sea monkeys for Barb to feed to her fish.
(See? Pets eat funny stuff.)
They came with a lovely instruction booklet.

In the chapter entitled “HOW TO TRAIN YOUR SEA MONKEYS” it says:
“You cannot train sea monkeys.
But you can make it appear as though your sea monkeys are
ACTUALLY OBEYING YOUR COMMANDS.”

At the corner of Bloor Street and Spadina Avenue sits
a little goggle-glassed, cross-legged man
who sells pens from a can.
He sings songs about going to Hollywood
to be rich and famous and
yells “HEY MISTER HOLLYWOOD!”
at anyone who passes by.
People like people cause people do funny stuff.

LETTER TO JANE

Nothing to report to headquarters.

Haven’t yet been able to convince my scientist girlfriend
that when Newton drops his apple it stays in place
whilst all the universe shifts its position and runs up to meet it.

Am currently in training to become a certified messier object,
but the final exam’s a bitch--
I may be stuck in my current low-future career as a neutrino.

Am trying to extract information from the civilian population,
but every time I interrogate them, they brush me off with:
“Dontcha know there’s a war on?”

Have discovered that when the Good Book says the meek shall inherit the earth
it is referring to the roundworms.

(if the world suddenly evaporated into nothingness,
its image would remain intact,
traced by the bodies of the innumerable microscopic life forms that blanket it.)

With all due respect to the Good Book,
roundworms aren’t so meek as all that.

Am keeping a low profile.
Trying to blend in with The Kids.
Some will try to tell you that The Kids are All Right.
Don’t you believe it.
They are OK at best.
Edible kids, made of candy
cute! sexy! fun!
and damned to all hell.

Into the out of joint we are finally arrived.

 

PHILOSOPHOEMS

FREUD

this I does not think he is me

I don’t think so either

WITTGENSTEIN

that the world is at least one thousand miles long
that if words were inches
my tongue would never quite wrap
all the way round

that tears are the first word

ARISTOTLE

not between
too much and
too little
but rather
neither/nor

NIETZSCHE

glad that we break
so that we may
be fitted together
again and again

HEIDEGGER

these hands
these hands are things
that things slip through
between

 

SMALL POEMS

HOW NOT TO LOOK AT TELEVISION

The screen is a window.
It does not project; it does not dissemble.
It opens.

They ask:
why are the children forever standing before the screen?
For air, of course.

And what is air?
The possibility of things.

UNTITLED

all hunched up
on top his cane

one
limp
leg
too short
hangs sideways

as he hobbles
clop
hobbles
clop he
sings
clop
sings

and what would you do