Maurice Oliver

In Episode Six

we follow our hero to a famous Swiss clinic
as he attempts to un-score the bossa-nova of
a blue vein on the underside. the place is
crawling with a high-brow of famous fascist
facials and noble nut-crackers. a pack of
paparazzi wait outside to interpret surgical
charts smuggled out by the kitchen help. he
begins the three night all-inclusive stay
with a warm greeting from the receptionist
who wears only a toothpaste smile and a set
of skeleton keys around her neck. after she
shows him to his room the chambermaid shows
her best bare breast in a wrestle of fresh
linen at the cart of foreplay as she lip-syncs
the lyrics to "what-i-did-for-love." even the
blondie-boy pool attendant expresses a desire
to please when he asks in a breath bold as dung
beetles if he'd like to straddle the hump of a
rainbow but our hero speaks no French. that
evening after dinner he has his palm read then
retires to bed early but is awoken at midnight
to the sensual sounds from the room next door
as a bed defiantly creaks in same-sex springs.

Protagonist

By afternoon rain gives way
to bright sunshine that spills
through dusty blinds
to settle
on the TV where Oprah
sits mute as some author
plugs her new
book
this Chatty Cathy
of doomsday dare
moving along a
verbal sidewalk
like a choked-up jock
on roller skates
warns that a comet could
scour our fragile planet
or just come close enough
to badly bruise
the feelings
of small change purses.

Blindsight

The alternative story is accompanied
by pictures presented in a slick
format. In this version, frogs croak
in ponds, whole families of crickets
scratch high notes, and monarch
butterflies brush cheeks in passing.
Peep & peck could be the understated
theme as nature allows for no clemency.

This slow-motion photography outstrips
our most graphic expectations as the
brain backstrokes against its on current
and then slowly drowns.

Viewers are suspended in a state of
nerves from astonished to ambushed.
The i can not undo a thirst that
resembles water. Blindsight full
brims then burst at the seams.

Meanwhile, in the original version,
we see a set of seven tiny footprints
stride across living mud single-filed,
as dwarfs hi-ho off to work.

Strange Ceiling

Nor is it just
that i lick to
taste the bitter
looking for a
beautiful box
to be sick in
all i find is
a stink-hole
that sucks down
to a chipped
cesspool where
debris is fiesta
mystique & things
remain basic blue
sealed in laryngitis
it shelters a purple
whip of a tongue &
says it's a comedian
so i bring my own
background music
& die laughing
in vendetta gear
violet or violent?

Maurice Oliver
After almost a decade of working as a freelance photographer in Europe, Maurice Oliver returned to America in 1990 to work for the Los Angeles Times.
Then, in 1995, he made a lifelong dream reality by traveling around the world for eight months. But instead of taking pictures, he used the same acute creative energy to record the experience in a journal, which eventually became hundreds of poems. And so began his ambition to be a poet. His poetry has appeared online in ink-mag.com, retortmag.com, readingdivas.com, onefortytwo.com, tryst3.com, eye-shot.net, deepcleveland.com, webdelsol.com (The Potomac Journal) and will appear in the Winter/Spring 2003-4 issues of Holy Ignorance, Stridemagazine(UK), poesiamag.com, and Spitjawreview.
He presently resides in Portland, Oregon, where he is a private tutor.

Contact Maurice Oliver