Maurice Oliver


Ignition Or Perdition

She reads my leaves.

First, she tells
me that very shortly
my life will become smooth
as a blister and that good fortune
will allow me to drink from Cinderella’s
slipper. There will be two omens to serve as
forewarnings; a groundhog will emerge from my
mouth looking for its shadow and an elaborate grid-work
of spider webs will appear between my toes, several days before
the revelation. But she cautions me to pick the right Monk tune
next time I play a jazz album or I might face the possibility
of becoming an eternal extra in a Fellini movie. Once
success comes, I should stash the loot under my
mattress and schedule the next bank hoist on
a day when someone I trust can drive the
get-away car. After all, both humor
and horror can be depicted
from the back of a dirt
bike, competing for
shiny awards in
a timeless
paradox.
When she’s done,
I pay the minimal fee and
step back out into the night, where
the cosmos waits to deal with me from its simmering lobster pot.


Lava You Can Speak

No.

Actually, it’s the piano that plays the hands. Language
is what determines the proper accent and lava is what
speaks. The truly simpleminded expects a great deal

and only barn dances can cause gaiety. Wind is nothing
but a typhoon. Passion is solely responsible for dislocated
backs. Sometimes is brought about by never and what

ever is left of life is just the space between a legal pad
of lines. War is a burglar out to rob every household.
Bullets are gravediggers. A person could spend their

whole life thinking they want to listen to Beethoven
when all they really want is a simply designed throttle
to steer their hearts. My advice is to forget about the

moonlight horse feathers of gloomy-throated thumping
and concentrate on the arterial surprise that stays a
surprise long enough to minuet itself.


& A Slightly Loony Grin

I die at the end of the film noir.

When I was alive people considered me distinguished and
quietly dangerous. I always had a bit of kite string and
the weather in my vane was never rusted. Life grew
to be only the size of a bird or a mouse and had
a definite fitful glow. Fact is, even with the
unpredictable landmines and cases of
sporadic gunfire I could still read
late into the night with just a
flashlight. My words would
often leap from my lips
after standing on a
ledge twenty
stories above a
busy sidewalk. Don’t
get me wrong, I had my
share of problems too. I could
never seem to tell the difference
between an onion and a golf ball and
enjoyed every tuneless song I heard. Still,
I always had the uncanny ability to maintain an
expression that never let anyone know where I was
going. What else? O yeah, I could float over oncoming
traffic, but I guess that skill is pretty common nowadays.



Conclusive Evidence’s Concave Face

The forensic results puts several questions to rest:

-Flak jackets do have jaw lines similar to turtles.

-Mussels are nothing more than beautiful helmets.

-Pink flamingos never nest on landmines.

-”Alison” is military jargon for Monarch butterflies.

-Feathers are credited for writing the first word.

-There’s no such thing as a hole in war.

-Most clocks suffer from twitches.

-A sore throat makes good pillow stuffing.

-All languages are derived from grounded rhino horns.



The Prospects Of Becoming A Ponyfather

Dear Samantha,

I do love you but I honestly don’t understand your obsession with
horses. Sometimes it’s hard to relate to shoes you don’t wear,
especially when the laces are broken I guess is what I’m saying.
For instance, what did you mean when you said horses should run
free? Was the comment about the horse feathers you made the
other night at dinner a personal jab at me? Does your reference
to horse-power only have to do with automobiles? Would you
rather I play the role of pony or cart when we’re in bed and should
I bring along cubes of sugar or a bunch of carrots to use in our
foreplay? And perhaps most important, would you feel a bit more
comfortable in our relationship if I changed my name to Mister Ed?
I’d do it if you wanted me to. I’d even go out in public with one of
those hideous T-shirts that screams “Hung-Like-A-Horse”, if it
meant I could sow my field of oats in your valley and then sell the
harvest as part of the organic foods movement. Ponder these
questions my four-legged darling, then meet me in the stables at
midnight.