CHEESEBURGERS
There is no one holding a gun
to my head to catalog
this film by Orson Welles,
a low-budget "culmination
of the filmmaker's life-
long obsession with Shakespeare's
ultimate rapscallion,
Sir John Falstaff."
My uncle was portly and fished
the Cedar River and drank
Falstaffs by the six
and smoked packs of Salems.
His last meal was a Hardee's
bacon cheeseburger.
Lionel Sternberger is said
to have invented
the cheeseburger in 1926
in Pasadena. My uncle's
name was Leonard
which bears a kind of cat-
like relationship to the name
Lionel. There are many
ways to make a cheeseburger.
Did Orson Welles eat
cheeseburgers? My first guess
is yes, though there are those
who said he ate only steak.
He was obsessed with his role.
RELIGIOUS PAMPHLET ACTS
There are four things
God wants you to know:
1) The men with ball caps
and placards confront
people on the sidewalk.
2) Jesus loves tacos.
3) Tacos El Toro 3
is his favorite truck.
4) El Bandolero is his second favorite.
There are two golden dinosaurs
in Twenty-nine Palms.
The aquamarine tattoo
parlor is open.
Hunker down for winter
under the Joshua tree.
Feel your spine bubble up
to your neck.
Dance and spin.
REMEMBERING CHILDHOOD
Snow is melting today, slowly,
like ice in a Coke.
The abandoned chili dog drive-in
is full of snakes.
1967 will never follow me
down the street
in a slow Oldsmobile again,
my bike chain coming loose,
near the leaf-covered murder
and the dead sneakers
hanging from a light post.
THE LIFE OF A CARTOON
As I fall asleep, I am the captain of the Rusty Skupper
nodding at the helm.
When I wake in the morning,
I open my eyes
and see a giraffe bending its long neck
down to graze from my pillows.
My black wool cap
jumps off my ears.
I run into a newspaper photograph
of poplars swaying
under a murmuration of bees,
a swirl of fingerprints.
ALL THERE IS
pink snow pink water pink
sky pink butter pink bread
of course pink soup
my head feels like its own blood
angels surround themselves with angels
the guitar takes its slow walk down the staircase
SITTING UP IN BED, SATURDAY MORNING, CINCO DE MAYO, 2018
Jack is dead. Walter is
dead. My guitar smiles at the window
like a hollow skull. The birds
tweet their stock exchange of
sunshine and worms. Patches of
light hit the carpet. Robert
is dead. Belle is dead. I can
still read their poems. The robins
and cardinals insist yes, yes, yes,
yes, yes, yes, yes: the grass is green
as emeralds. The dew is cold and
wet as champagne; come dance on
the tennis court, then go find
breakfast. This is the day
the poets play the fiction writers
in a slightly friendly game of
softball. Mark smashes one to
left field and a run is scored
for the poets. Bill is dead. He
reads his poem, then climbs out
the window of Noble Hall. The mountains
laugh. We all meet at Julio's for a
gigantic tray of nachos,
cerveza. The birds say: give our
linked consciousness a try, human
friends. The cats move their heads
in unison to those crazy birds. My
leg goes numb, but just for a while.
The light is bright, and somewhere
everyone is fine and still.
72 ASPECTS
Poets are always talking to the angels.
It's part of the game.
The thrush's hysterical laughter.
The respiration of the wind through
the curtains. The creak of the opening door.
The sneeze of a tuxedo kitten.
These are all aspects; many more go unnamed.
An infinite 72 in all. You are
to trace your fingers around their shapes
and colors, wait for them
to appear. You listen to their voices,
tell them what frightens you, what you need.
You wait on their lips of summer. They speak.
They are smiles called Sunset, Swim, Watermelon, Wheel.
Your skull is a chalice. Your memory is wine.
They line up with you, brass tokens
in their palms. The electric trolley
opens its doors. You step into it. You drop your token
into the glass box. The box churns.
This is your offering. This is your church.
The world rolls smoothly by in the trolley's windows:
houses, broken cars, small trash fires, metal drums,
the oak trees' expressive dances.
RABBITS AND BUBBLES
I finish a draft of a short story.
I hate the story. I want to burn it,
but I am afraid five great pages
exist within it. I am still trying
to mine those five pages. In short,
I am running away to a foreign
country, a small rural village,
alone to end my days.
Many rabbits live in my yard.
I can't see what's going on outside.
There is an explosion like a cement
truck packed with C4.
The neighborhood is traumatized,
but it's only the high school
being let out early. I was always owned
by nothing. My friend leaned into me
and said, “I love you and I know you
love me.” I said, “Perhaps we can
have a picnic this summer.” She shook
her head like I didn't understand
this was a dream and she could not
leave the dream since she was not
in my slowly waking world.
I sat upright in bed. The orange cat
licked its paws in a rectangle of sunlight.
POTATOES AND HAIRCUTS
My knuckles are sore as if they've been grating
against rusted iron all night. Five deer approach
my yard cautiously to eat mulberries in the dawn light.
A plaster of Paris owl stares at me like my father
contemplating the year 2018, only back in 1966
on the outskirts of Montreal as shadows fall down
Mount Royal's valley. I watch grackles eat.
A voice says, “You are seeing the Garden
of Eden.” “Is the Garden here and now
and for everyone?” “Yes,”
says the voice. “It's going to be extraordinary.”
GHOST BREATH, 8
The woman pulls on her hat and wraps her scarf.
I think of drains whispering in the dark.
I wish I could hold my own hand,
but that would look strange,
like a prayer to someone out of range.
Alright, alright, the writer says to himself.
He senses figures in the hall,
standing in the light, trying to make sense of it all.
The woman leans on the shoulder of the mountain.
The mountain moves to his seat.
Shortly the play will begin,
and shortly it will be complete.
Rustin Larson's writing appears in the anthologies Wild Gods (New Rivers Press, 2021) and Wapsipinicon Almanac: Selections from Thirty Years (University of Iowa Press, 2023). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, Puerto Del Sol, The Penn Review, North American Review, and Poetry East. His latest collection is Russian Lullaby for Brother Donkey (Alien Buddha Press, 2024).
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