Psychedelic Norway
John Colburn
Coffee House Press
first impression
we throw a party and the police come
they have black shoes and accessorize well
like hipsters
we immediately throw another party
the police come back
they are enchanted with our music
it calls to them
their fists love our doors
I have been in this kind of relationship before
the police leave
they drive through the night to end another party
we must think of them in the morning
how an officer sits at the edge of a mattress
afraid of a new day
fumbling with the silk edge of a blanket for comfort
the police want us to think of others
and to stop having this good time
but everything that happens is just something
we made up a moment ago
and when the police tell us not to be so happy
we ask them where they got their shoes
it is unspeakably early in our lives
we want to come to our own parties
as other people — then we'd show us how to live
we want to come to our party as the police
we want to be others
it is wrong but we still want to
some people keep a record of their most loved moments
on scraps of paper in a coffee can
we want to be something we just made up
when the song ends
we want the next song to make us happy
the police drive through the night on pursuit tires
we know where they get their shoes
we show them how to live
fumbling with the silk edge of a blanket for comfort
writing their names on scraps of paper
to put in a coffee can
we want them to come back
_________
ode to mescaline
Cold flower walks back and forth in the shy body.
Cactus petal swims in the hungry body.
Green vapor sings in the fever body.
The stomach goes away down a hard road.
Here comes a fireworks body.
Father flies through clouds.
Mother rises through earth.
I admire each leaf.
The sky pleases the day.
We'll give our hair back to earth.
Even the armpit, even the ditch has a pleasing fashion.
What if I were a mango?
Smell how the grass loves us.
Feel the tongue of the cloud.
A listener praises the sound of fire.
See our shadows have dignity.
Our headaches have their own lives, like moons.
I sit aside a day for clouds, a night for clouds.
It grows green light inside me.
There is nothing to resist.
Sometimes I am nothing.
The tongue of the cloud cleans each word.
The sweet offering of the voice makes a way.
Any name is good enough.
Let's hear the sound of walking.
Walking is part of the song.
A cactus god dreams everything.
I heard about your other god.
I heard it walking.
____________
obedience
It is better to sleep upstairs
in the world of dreams.
Almost shining in the sky.
My parents have never told me
one dream they've had.
When daylight moves in, a settlement,
the dream travels by dog.
It is a dog in the shape of a dog.
In a dream my parents finally tell me
one dream they've had.
Then I sit up in bed and dream I
sit up in bed
telling my wife about a dream I had
with a dog in it.
My father yells up the stairs
I had a dream, I had a dream.
Then I look out the window
and see a space on the sidewalk
where a dog just was.
The dog that sleeps when I am awake
and wakes up running when I fall asleep.
Later, in the shower,
I put my mouth to the nozzle
and I am a dog.
What if my parents
have never had one dream!
I sit up in bed
almost shining in the sky
and tell my wife about a dream.
The downstairs in the shower
I am a dog, distracting myself
from the other thing I am becoming.
My dreamless father shouts up the stairs.
He can't walk anymore,
he is in my dream.
He will have to travel by dog.
JOHN COLBURN
