Tuesday, July 10, 2012

2 poems by FPL featured poet, John Milkereit



John Milkereit began writing poetry after taking a seminar on the poetry of Billy Collins in 2005 at his local church. His poems have appeared in Harbinger Asylum, Swirl, Poetry Revolt, the Texas Poetry Calendar and has been a juried poet at the Houston Poetry Fest the last three years.  He also recorded several of his poems at Taping for the Blind. Pudding House Press published his chapbooks in 2010, and Paying Admissions was a Finalist-of Note in their 2009 chapbook competition. During the day, he is a rotating equipment specialist at a Houston engineering firm.



John Milkereit will be a featured poet at the FPL Poetry Series reading on Wednesday, July 18 at 7pm.  Other poets include Donna Cozart Pauley, Glynn Monroe Irby, and Dodie Meeks.




Because You Requested Poetry About Jimi Hendrix and Eggplant 
                                        

A dream must exist,
one about walking under
the flesh of a purple sea
soft and bitter.


The trip is rich and salted.
The sky acts funny as clouds
resemble five-lobed corolla
and shadows of birds oil across


whatever spell is mashed into this
brain dish.  Backstage a riff plays,
the air cries out the yellow flower’s
amplified release which begins the


stew of awakening in you
drifting onto an island
pollen-blotted and curried
for lavender.



--John Milkereit




Disgruntled Tree  

--from Mary Temple’s light installation Northwest Corner, Southeast Light 



No you cannot take my picture for the gazillionth time
or the greatest of insults paint shadows on the wooden
floor so you can trick people with bottle-nosed psychology
and who really cares about a sense of equilibrium I hate magnolias
but you know that even though I’m your neighbor in
Central Park and they’re from a Houston temple which
seems like I’m on an ouija board not a wall so don’t think
I’m calm after applying tiny-weensy brushstrokes of sealant
which is the opposite of your title this swath is the southwest
corner lady and light is from the northeast direction of your
little trompe l’oeil I will live longer than you and the carpenters
I suffer after feeling your nails and sanding what about
a day off when you are not carving or pissing what about
a couple minutes of voir dire to admit I’m smarter than you
and your little thing-a-ma-bob projector I will never visit this
gallery again even though I admit to digging the last exhibit
when the metal-airplane-looking wing jutted through glass
I will not embrace any more silhouettes I hate sucking
up to your “not-knowing” confusion because it is all fake
fake fake I would rather talk to a yam thanks to you I’m all
Alfred Hitchcock now with the birds but I am not like that
I lied about the magnolias I like magnolias and Dominique de
Menil because she hugs I don’t have to pose in your fantastic
fantasy behind a camera if you could just see with your own
naked eyes it is just so psycho and sorry all of this is just
really really sad



--John Milkereit





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