You Cannot Divide By Zero

I learned this from a mushroom
            burst from my left wrist
as it sang to me in a soprano
            to tell me what I thought,
all of it, was incredibly wrong—
            what I thought was love was really
a quarter left in a gumball machine
            or the galaxy inside of a marble.
What I thought was impossible was really
            the possible wearing a fake nose, mustache,
glasses combo. I believe in the sanctity of
            a laundromat after midnight
and the power of a heart with no borders.
            I believe in a cloud shaped like Jesus’ face,
diamonds that want less pressure in life,
            the predictable cut of a calendar’s x-ing out.
Something can be nothing, the mushroom said,
            but nothing cannot become something.
I pull a card from behind its ear. I clap
            and a marching band appears playing
Van Halen’s greatest hits. Here is nothing,
            here is a star dressed in the short skirt of space—
How beautiful! How full of nothingness!
            I paint a dumpster red and it becomes a painting.
The dust around us spells out a message in air:
            Divide By Zero And Kiss Joy On The Lips.
I don’t know her, but I’d like to.
            What I thought was impossible was really
a car without an engine, two snowflakes
            in a cloud’s womb at once. Mushroom, baby,
I’m on top of zero like a rolling globe performer.
            Do you want to see how far we can go?

Many Imagined Problems

In the beginning, there was clay and also ribs, serpents, fruit hanging temptationly.
Now, there is a man, his head stuck in next week, every spoken word is churned butter.
Mull mull, brain no better than a sled of sleepy huskies, out of present to the point of absence. 
Here: he vomits whydidIsaythats and whatwillIdos into porcelain, third time this week, I reckon.
Surely it’s temporary—man can plant himself, soil up to waist, recycle imagined issues rampant.
Build a ladder to sit upon, too, for these streets do not end. Calm, like a cul-de-sac, doesn’t exist.
Ah, but there are other roads—stilt-bodies all around, successful undrowning, oil spilt lives.
Man just wants to play kazoo, climb a mountain, dye hisself blue and pop limbs off body, sure.

For some days the tide is low. The rapids end their shift and dip; a hurricane opens its eye at last.
But there will always be a parrot on a captain’s shoulder, a blaring light next to the gas level.
Man’s stomach will join the trapezees and clarity will revert to its nomadic desert ways.
He may curse the riverbanks that birthed him, beg the snake to turn the radio down to zero, hush.
Or his head centers itself a la Ptolemy’s Earth. Could be this way, could be that, surveys say.
Certainty exists only in the recurring dream: man is plankter, his life is small, his heart is free.

Just A Comet

I started out with the coins napping at the bottom
of the water fountain, downtown, in the park,
beneath maybe water and in prime real estate.
I ask questions like: Do wishes ever come true?
I’ll throw myself off a bridge if they do.
Portraits hardly painted
when all the faces shimmer and melt.
Somewhere on the coin lawn is a car
that wanted to be a fish. There are no happy endings
underneath, not until the porch light flicks on.
In my funeral’s dramatis personae,
omit me, include the coffin
and adjacent rectangles.

I want none of the oak and all of the driftwood.
I want a few tears, but no pledges of allegiance.
Do wishes ever come true? If they do, zip a single up,
light that sucker. Take my car keys,
never come back. Well, come back,
but only when we know how to solve
all the crises, turn off the loud alarms.
Freeze a spear of sunlight, leave off the point, be clear
when you ask for forgiveness. I came to the ocean with my shoes
off and left with a new dance move for my wedding day.
It’s called: I think the wishes come true.

Don’t think for a moment it’ll all make sense.
Even fountain water, like a memory, grows older.
Houses start to creak, give live birth (as they do)
to new dictionary entries between L and E
portrayed in films by a young star that,
upon further review, was just a comet.
Inevitable as paint drying,
all our days form an orderly line.
In my back pocket, there the coins go
not doing nothing after all.  





Noah Powers is a tiny dog stuffed in a kind woman's purse. They bark poems into the void and serve as the managing editor for Black Warrior Review. His poems can be found in HAD, scaffold, and other dog-friendly establishments.

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