Yesterday’s Delirium

Originally published in Unscooped Bagel (2016)

Logged with oil the prairie dogs sank into luxurious quicksand.

And the abandoned razor cut into the butterfly

who staggered into a room of degenerate rotisseries.

On all four corners acid winds awakened with sullen eyes

remembering the unhatched eggs and burning hair

that metamorphosed into bestial violins that played all night

while clouds bled tears

drowning everyone in town except for the old woman

who shimmied past the graveyard.

How when eyelashes are seeped in decay

can dragonflies say that mercy found a place at the table!

How could they know that plants would replace the eyes,

and that the roots would strangle ten billion mothers

whose children have forgotten their names

with yesterday’s delirium.

In Case You Don’t Know

Originally published in Abbreviate Journal (2016)

I was half asleep counting the teeth

inside a fishbowl when a two-inch fairy

pulled the tie out of my shoelaces

and I tripped 40 years later

hurting my knees so badly

that the doctors said

I’d never walk again

but could get my exercise

by opening my mouth

and yodeling a tune

that once was popular

among educated pygmies

in the land of Ya

which is now called Yo

in case you don’t know.

53 Years Ago

Originally published in The Vein (2016)

Me and my monkey were dancing

Something like a gig only we were

Holding hands and the crowd got

Louder and louder until for the fun

Of it we began to improvise and what

Came out of me and what came out

Of that monkey is still one for the ages

We left shit everywhere and I mean

Everywhere on top of the heads of state

And even in the mouths of babes it’s

Lucky it was all recorded cause events

Like that don’t happen every day

For when a crowd goes from love

To murder you know that’s news

And the only reason I’m around to

Remember is cause my bite was even

Greater than the monkey’s who put up

A hell of a fight as best I can remember

On that Saturday night 53 years ago.

An Uneventful Life

Originally published in Purple Pig Lit (2015)

When I found out I only had 72 years left to live

I stopped eating Hostess Twinkies, only bathed once

every nine months, and stopped watching programs on

channel 69, my favorite TV station. I no longer talked

to my friend the butcher, slept with a sock over my head,

or brushed my teeth after eating string cheese and sauerkraut.

I gave half my money away to unwed mothers who were

part-time strippers in alehouses, and the other half to Save

The Fat People’s Project in my local community. And finally

I said good-bye to anyone I’d ever given the evil eye to, tracking

each person down through telepathy and word of mouth among

former hitmen for the Campfire Girls. I felt some relief knowing

I’d cleared my name, even though I knew the worst was yet to come,

in what was mostly an uneventful life.

My Life

Originally published in Indigo Rising (2014)

Making a suicide pact with billions of people

would not be a safe bet. How would I know if some

didn’t keep to the agreement and burned the bodies,

took the best jobs, ate the best food . . .

How would I know if some continued to mate

and ultimately procreate,

which could mean years before anyone found out

about the original plan.

How would I know, was the question

that made me change my mind in the end. . .

and just get on with it.

Robert Peters

Originally published in Spider Mirror (2018)

Gone, but still laughing at how things are

no matter how many times the props are rearranged

in the room.

Lying on the divan all in makeup that he stole from the drawer

of Helena Rubenstein, he picks up a megaphone

and announces that the worms will dance a polka

instead of a foxtrot.

With this, the dogs clap their paws and say,

“Robert, you old SOB, why don’t you ever throw us

some biscuits?”

To which he replies, “Because dogs are the worst poets

in the world. I know because I used to be one,

long before the word entered my brain

and clung there like a rag from the bag of a hag.”

And while his shadow merges with the air

he fits himself into an imaginary oven.

Ignites it using mental telepathy. . .

Jeffrey Zable is a teacher and conga drummer who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric music for dance classes and Rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area. His poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies. Recent writing in Hypnopomp, Ink In Thirds, The Stray Branch, The Mark, After The Pause, Third Wednesday, Brushfire, Smoky Blue, Alba, Greensilk, Corvus, and many others. In 2017 he was nominated for both The Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

Six Poems by Jeffrey Zable