Paul Siegell


*A Good-Surprise Experience Awaits*
                                                                            —for Jared Sobelson

City neon, viva city, city shining blitzed experience:

                                                                            How weird, ears—no?

Timeliness pipeline livelihood timeframe: Wake
                from restlessness—

                               Graveyard shift’s in diapers:

And whadduz yer nose smell like?

                Limelight skyline Center City nightlife:

Full moon loosens the buzz of a drunk dial—Yes!

                               Rip the pages from your notebook!

Chime in
like morning coming thru eyelids
a kid running into pigeons
like the big bitten burst of a cherry tomato
the illumination of life excited

Chime in
like Life Lived Alive
heart-to-heart hilariousness
and the intimacy of “I love your laugh”

                Dunno, man; whadduz a sneeze smell like?

Chime in
like sister celling in from Long Island
like, ah, “1 missed call”

Chime in
a band you love on stage in your city
Chime in
the sounds of “117 South 17^th Street”

Stained-glass spray-paint break-dance hand-drums:

Chime in
like notes from a poembedded journalist
graffiti on the Walt Whitman Bridge
like Liberty Bell crack
                with congrats fantastic
and America’s amnesia of the American bomb

—Rip the pages, rip, rip the pages from your notebook!

Chime in
like a Poemexican mowing the lawn of the National
                Constitution Center

Chime in
an exaggerated generation
the word costumes a-those spinning unfactual truths—
                Ricockulous Latrons!
the headache from too much lemonade
the drug test this sewer of Columbia has desperately
                needed to fail for decades

Chime in
like Election Day—Vote tov!—Poemerica go forth!

Chime in
the clit of the city, or better yet: clit a-the country

Chime in
like celebrities crunching celery and stomach muscles
                as we each endeavor toward our cadavers,
                maintaining the madness of “Who are you
                wearing?”
Chime in
“Click image to enlarge”

Chime in
“Please enter your password”
like the word “Crapulous” actually meaning drunk
Chime in
the vitamin e-mail of a sphinx in your inbox,
                definitely something worth forwarding

                               Dude, y’ever drop a deuce in a dream?

Chime in
seven bucks and change
like the beggar on 15^th and Chestnut in a “UR so
                off my Buddy List” tee
and another on Market in another propositioning,
                “I know a place”

Chime in
like New Work City
a 10 percent raise after only six months
like good-news music, friend-filled weekends
                and nice-weather nights
Chime in
the short-letter rejection from a low-residency MFA
                in Asheville, North Carolina
like the first snowflake to fall—

What do the street vendors do in winter?
What do the messengers?

Time capsule, office cubicle, bathroom stall of it all:

How weird—Love it up—Life
on like the surprise vibration of a long-distance
                drunk dial
reminding you that eventho
yer just another marionette on a payroll,
                and likewise,
just another wind chime amongst the skyscrapers,
                                                                            your strings
—Throw your words at this city!—
                your strings are made of lightning.



Paul Siegell is the author of Poemergency Room (Otoliths Books, 2008), from which the above poem is taken. (NOTE: "Tov" means "good" in Hebrew.) He is also the author of the e-chap JΔM> (ungovernable press 2008) and the "parking lot attendant" over at ReVeLeR @ eYeLeVeL. Paul is a staff editor at Painted Bride Quarterly, and has contributed to The American Poetry Review, MiPO, BlazeVOX, Coconut and, oh baby, this is also his ninth appearance in Otoliths.

 
 
 
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