Three poems by Maxwell Mednick

AMONG CACTI AND HEATWAVES

Inside this plastic dome
built on the parched
rock of an old lake bed

a ring of apes in
yellow hazmat suits
pound the walls.

In slow motion they
chant in unison:
Git me outta here.

Git me outta here.
Git me outta here.
Their voices slowing,

teeth erect, eyes
watery, air running low.
One by one they

finally succumb.
Drop to the ground.
Wheeze and stop twitching.

Several days later
a cheeseburger rolls by
on a skateboard.

====================

IT IS COLD AND RAIN PATTERS THE ROOFTOP

This furniture store is endless
And there are no walls.
There is no outside.

Spacetime is curved like in Pac-man.
Walk far enough and you will end
up where you began.

None of us can speak
or laugh or shit right or see
the death in salami.

And Garbonzotron
that floating nustack apparition
who lurks behind my vision

has found the master light switch.
He flickers it violently
on and off and on and off and on

as I duck into a bathroom.
Not a real bathroom
But a showroom bathroom.

I am hiding from his violin cries
tormenting the night like
a cartoon baby, lost in the Black

Forest by a stream.
I wait for his velvety
hand, his screeching lungs

to grow tired.
I know he will be hungry
for pizza soon.

====================

SEØUL

I imagine a small hill of human
backs in your apartment, Shane.

Flowing window curtains like disco
balls letting in patches of red advertisement

light catching our long spinal chords
and rib cage indentations.

A carpet of wrinkled skin and hair
draped over bones. A love mass writhing

in a dark red apartment in Seoul
breathing among honking and screaming.

A tongue flicks an ear. An open mouth whispers
into another ear, "Did I tell you about the dots

on Morgan Freeman's face?"

Author bio:

Maxwell Mednick is the author of “Between and Eternity and the Atom” (Zero Ducats Collective, 2010). He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado, and currently lives in Wellington, New Zealand.