Daydreams – David Lohrey

December 11, 2024

The Rottweiler Next door

The Rottweiler next door killed my wife’s pink
                Chihuahua, but spat out one ear.
We planted its ear in our flower bed next to
                the foxgloves under 3 inches of mulch.
It germinated, sending up coiled fronds 14” high.
                At the first rain, it died, the entire spectacle.
It barks at night, or so my wife says. She hears it.
                Lorraine, our Mexican maid from Oaxaca,
hears it, too. Her mole won first prize at the Pomona Fair,
                taking 1st place for color but 3rd for taste. 
It was the color of blood that’s been left out in the sun.
                Lorraine calls everyone amigo except me. It’s clear 
we are not friends, so she calls me mister or maestro.
                She asks me every morning if I’d like some mud. 
Her ass is wider than our Maytag. She doesn’t use pot holders 
                when she removes hot skillets from the stove.
The Rottweiler next door killed my appetite for life. It’s a special
                breed bred for violence. He ate our pooch whole, clamping
down on its head and swallowing, as a snake devours a mouse.
                Only Judy Collins can mend my heart. Only the past 
offers escape. From here on out all our neighbors are Rottweilers.

 

Bedouin of the Jungle

The young man said he was Brazilian
But I knew he was lying.
He spoke some nonsense about mixed 
Parentage, some shit about a black father 
And a mother who is white. I simply can’t 
Believe – this black and white mix – fully 
Explains why he looks Arab.

He has an 8 inch tattoo of a blue and green
Lighthouse covering his arm. This image, 
He explained, beckons; it shows the way. 
It guides and welcomes, but demands nothing. 
It announces accessibility. It does not
Prevent escape. This lad, I realized, as he gives 
This explanation, wishes to be this lighthouse,
To host and celebrate arrivals and departures, 
To be a beacon to his fellows.

This youth from the tropics looks to be
A Bedouin from Arabia. His olive skin 
And black locks give it away. He admits
He can’t fool the ladies. They love his 
Exotic curls. Once they get their hands on him, 
They know they’ve met a wanderer. 
He thinks like a nomad, not a farmer.
The girls can see he is of a clan of travelers, 
Not a tribe of settlers. He was born in São Paulo, 
But has adopted the mentality of the sands.

The Bedouin of the Amazon like those of the desert
Show bravery when attacked. They are not afraid, 
But, not unlike their sandy brethren, prefer to recite 
Erotic poetry, to sing and dance around the camp fire. 
This youth of mixed heritage may be black and white,
But his state of mind not his blood lines defines his race.
The tribe to which he belongs dwells in harbors 
Of river water not burning sand, but like the Arabs 
He welcomes strangers with open arms. 

 

Neanderthal Moment

He walked in and I knew who he was:
the embodiment of a now-extinct masculinity,
the silence of a hunter, the posture of a slouch.
My God, I thought, here is a specimen of the dodo.

He smells like the inside of a tennis ball, like a whiff from 
under one’s arm. Carelessness, long lost, long gone, an ancient odor.
Like a cowboy asleep on his horse, the perfection of nonchalance,
in rebellion against caring; the embodiment of ho-hum, this fellow 
has held up his middle finger so long, he’s had to give it a rest. 
His middle-finger is napping. Instead, his nose twitches; 
his eyes whisper, “whatever.”

The girls in class complain that he stinks. They want his boxing 
gloves removed, his gym clothes left outside in a locker. “Please?” 
This is said pleasantly. He doesn’t look up: “No.” Had he 
said it in anger, they’d have attacked. There would now be fingernail 
polish scratched across his face. His “no” is not rude, but it is final. 
The girls and I now know who’s boss. As to the smell…
he likes it. Me, too.

Not to care with indifference is attractive. All eyebrows are raised, 
everyone takes notice. An event has been witnessed. We are now
part of his play. His demeanor reveals his character. That “no” is 
an instant turn-on. Clint Eastwood has arrived. It’s an ancient refusal, 
as when men once said no to women. Everyone in the room now 
wants to sleep with this boxer. Why? Because refusal marks
the birth of civilization; it’s an aphrodisiac. 

Had he said, “fuck off,” they would have fought him; I’d have 
been forced to take their side. But his answer was not “fuck off.” 
He’d delivered his “no” with a yawn, not in defiance.  He is 
a boxer; he is not into hitting women. He seems unaware 
of their existence.  Like a panther chasing a deer, he isn’t 
distracted by apples. He doesn’t want any honey. He is
all about the knockout. He’s about winning.

He is concentrating on the ring. He’s a killer, undomesticated, untrained. 
This is what the girls and I realize. Talk about trigger warnings. 
Not to care about being offensive can itself be offensive. Sometime later,
I ask him if he has a girlfriend. He shrugs. His father bought him
a $3,000 robot for high school graduation. Its hand is self-lubricating 
and comes with an adjustable grip: gentle to firm, room temp to hot. The 
machine greets him at the door and never gets a headache. It smiles. 

 

Kabuki Underground

I was standing with my pelvis thrust forward;
my crotch fit just so at ground zero, facing 
the Taj Mahal. She seemed to lean into it, making
an adjustment, or it seemed so in my fevered imagination,
vivid and perverse as it is suggestive. I thought,
well, this is one form of crowd control.

I would have taken counter measures had someone
thrust a hard rod between my cheeks. I might have
blushed but I would not have been pleased. Was she?
In my dreams, yes. For me, I was offering a massage.
Her pleasure is what I sought, not mine. Must I lie?
Taking advantage is easier when one feels justified. 

Doing good is a cover for evil. For Heaven’s sake lessens
the resistance. It is wonderful how atheists blame God. 
I wonder what believers might think. Is morality just an excuse?
It’s not that God makes one do it, it’s that doing wrong pleases Him. 
My pleasure rests in sacrifice, a delusion. I did it for Him. I poke
this girl’s cute ass in the hope that God consents. 

A little more of this, and I could start a criminal enterprise. 
This could be what psychos do. Serial killers must enter into 
this sort of sick pact. The killing doesn’t make God angry, no; 
it makes Him happy. It’s done for His glory. Are all immoral acts 
forms of human sacrifice, like the decapitations performed by the Aztecs?
Lopping heads, rape, acts of malfeasance, disgrace: what’s the difference? 

Wasn’t this Genet’s idea of the perfect crime? Masturbation creates
a sacrament. Sexual juices as a form of holy water. It’s more than self-
serving. Suicide as the ultimate act of communion. Let’s stick with sex.
Genet sought to do God a big favor. He was convinced he couldn’t keep 
God waiting. This is what Mozart was said to have had in mind. Perverts
carry on this way; they convince themselves that taking is a form of giving.

 

Nuance of Damage

Hope is faster than light,
its speed beyond measure.
It’s alive, today, but what about
tomorrow? Easy come, easy…
I need something to build up
my courage.

One advantage is sleep, an endurance test: 
a locomotive or a pillow. We learn to calculate 
the commotion. Suck the straw, hang out, hit the hay.
Who’s to say? One cedes territory, one
establishes boundaries, one signs along 
the dotted line. Some choose Southern exposure.

Gross indecencies stare us down. Our calm is our 
rebellion. It’s the last frontier. Benumbed, confounded, 
lost in space. We escape confinement like water, searching,
but what of our aversion to chaos? Our taste for the
tranquil. Must we be held in contempt for despising
aggression, our preference for the impassive? 

It’s massive: jest. Or condescension. We cultivate superiority; 
we celebrate death: theirs, hers, his. Inoculation. Innocence. 
Quest. It’s a matter of combining ingredients, the right balance, 
justice. Too much won’t do. There’s much too much parsley.
One less grain of sand. The handyman’s muscles are too big.
The phone keeps ringing. Where’s the drain? 

There’s anguish in repetition. I prefer hilarity. The monks won’t go. 
Offer them a martini. Thelonious learned to tread lightly 
as one should. Deer in the headlights, grizzly bear, a flamingo: there. 
Notoriety ruins everything. Ask the Princess. I like to stay in bed. 
Back to basics. Sunny-side up. He refuses to remove his boxing gloves; 
he grunts and the world stands still. Rebellion begins with rest.

 

Why Do Poets Like Squirrels? 

One favors a poetry of cavities or one of mascarpone, brunette 
or pink flamingo, hand-made or hand jobs. It all shakes down, 
finally, to Walt and Emily. Today, we live in an age of names.
The Hyacinth girl is no more. She has been renamed after the 
Holocaust to increase sales and expand the audience.

I worship the triumvirate of vocal talent, not mere flesh, Aretha, 
Diana, and Tina Turner. I miss Ike’s bass. Wouldn’t it be marvelous 
to know who and who is not a racist. I envy Michelle’s certainty. 
Of course, it helps to have someone else do the dishes. It helps to have 
help. I’ve heard Michelle will only have white servants.   

There is no point in submitting if all of their poems are about trees. 
The girls write about dish-washing and the boys cry over spilt milk. 
It is poetry, all right, but not my cup of tea. I am a poet of remembered 
space, like the restrooms at Grand Central Station. I stop there every night 
on the way home to Zen, New Jersey, a small town not far from Paterson.

Let’s not beat around the bush. I don’t trust a literary journal that shows 
pictures of clouds and waves; an engulfing nothingness makes me nervous. 
Look what it did to Mark Rothko. Nothingness, after all, is not about nothing.
It’s a burden. I don’t go for any of Peggy Guggenheim’s favorites, least 
of all Jackson Pollock. Just not my ball of yarn.  

My yard is not big enough for a Henry Moore. My neighbor Nelson 
Rockefeller keeps a few in his garden. I admired him for years, until he 
started selling replicas and forgeries out of his garage. Then he set up shop. 
He sells copies of Guernica in twelve different sizes. He gave me an 8” x 9” 
for Christmas. When he started selling Warhols, we stopped talking.

All he wants for Christmas are my two front teeth. He reminds people 
of Cardinal Richelieu. The last time we spoke, I proposed seventy-thou 
as a bearable standard of living. This was a while back. He promised, after 
the tragic death of his son, the explorer, to dedicate the rest of his life 
to the preservation of the Gullah Geechee.

Shifting gears, I suggested devoting myself to finding and translating 
Thomas Mann’s long-lost novel, A Scepter in Symmetry. I asked him 
to bankroll me. Unfortunately, he went in with a fellow to make a movie, 
shooting commenced this week in the municipality of Tangamandapio, 
a place known throughout Mexico for its avocados.