Absence of Mermaids

By Steve De France

Absence of Mermaids is centered around putting down words hopefully in the right order that tells and shares valuable human moments of truth.
The poems are mainly narrative in form, and as such, depict human beings caught in the act of living. There should be recognizable moments where reader and writer can reflect on shared insights as well as lack of insight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499016116

Steve De France

Steve De France is a widely published poet, playwright and essayist both in America and in Great Britain. His work has appeared in literary publications in America, England, Canada, France, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, India, Australia, and New Zealand. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry in 2002, 2003 & 2006. Recently, his work has appeared in The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Mid-American Poetry Review, Ambit, Atlantic, Clean Sheets, Poetry Bay, The Yellow Medicine Review and The Sun. In England he won a Reader's Award in Orbis Magazine for his poem "Hawks". In the United States he won the Josh Samuels' Annual Poetry Competition (2003) for his poem "The Man Who Loved Mermaids". His play THE KILLER had its world premier at the GARAGE THEATER in Long Beach, California (Sept-October 2006). He has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Chapman University for his writing. Most recently his poem "Gregor's Wings" has been nominated for The Best of The Net by Poetic Diversity.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Steve De France.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014908688

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-1616-1

                 Softcover       978-1-4990-1617-8

                 eBook             978-1-4990-1611-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/27/2014

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHAT EVERY MAN WANTS

12 STEP PLAN

THE JOURNALS

CHRIST AT K-MART 2003

HEY DUDE

POST TRAUMATIC DISORDER

A FAN

PETA & PROFESSORS & PUSSYCATS

JIPS FRIED CRAWDADS ON A STICK GAS STATION & BAIT SHOP

DESTINY STUMBLES

BREAKING BONDS WITH BUDDHA

DANCING ON THE HEAD OF A PIN

THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT

PAYBACK

THE NEIGHBOR

THE NEWS 2016

ABSENCE OF MERMAIDS

CATHEDRAL MALL

2016 A SPACE ODYSSEY

MILLION DOLLAR SMILE

PERSONALS

GETTING THROUGH THE NIGHT

RETROSPECTIVE: BRAIN ENTERS BACKWARDS

BRAVE NEW WORLD

DUNG BEETLE FOR BUKOWSKI

TIME OUT OF JOINT

A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS

LONELY IN THE FLORIDA BACKWOODS

MORNING PRAYER

JUST THE PERFECT LIGHT

BLOWING WIND

COMING HOME

SLEEPLESS, SWEATING AND DREAMING

MR. POETRY MAKES THE SHORT LIST

A LITTLE BACKGROUND MUSIC

NIGHT THOUGHTS

VOO DOO CHICKEN

DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN

A COMPUTER NAMED XANADU

ANGELS ARE DYING IN LOS ANGELES

SPANDEX QUEEN

ROMANCE

POUNDING ON THE FRONT DOOR

FIDDLING AS CALIFORNIA BURNS

DEATH ENTERS MY BEDROOM WEARING ONLY A TIE PIN

ERSATZ HUMANITY

TOMORROW

***THE KILLER***

A C T II

ACT III

LIST OF PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS

WHAT EVERY MAN WANTS

I want a woman who injects

Botox & wears riding breaches

& loves to mount horses bareback.

I need a woman with a butt tuck,

a chin stretch, and a tit lift.

I need a woman who hangs out

in spas & draws flowers on her toenails.

I need a woman who changes white leather pants

3 times a day & sprays herself with vaginal refresher.

I need a woman who loves fine dining.

One who dances the night away,

One who invests in world cruises…

One who has been married not more than 8 times.

One who is fiercely independent.

One who puts her make up on with a putty knife.

I need a woman who has memorized

reservation numbers for every chic restaurant

in Paris, Rome, Cairo, Berlin & London

I want a woman always in a frenzy

with going Green & saving the tit mouse.

Yes I want a woman who keeps her bags packed

ready to fly off at the first sign of boredom.

In Africa & she has pictures of pygmy’s gathered round

as she demonstrates cell-phone texting.

My woman needs a man always strong & very

tolerant & wonderfully patient, one who is empathetic,

not afraid to cry, in touch with his softer side, one who

honors his mother and one who is a really really good listener.

My woman wants a man who loves opera,

Long turgid symphonies, and adores the ballet.

My woman will mount me once a month,

for the obligatory cleaning out of my tubes.

My woman needs a man to cook & wash laundry & floors.

She needs a man who believes in total CHICKIFICATION.

As I fondle her plastic breasts, she grumbles & reminds me,

of how truly lucky… I really am.

12 STEP PLAN

Thin men in designer jeans,

fresh out of mental clinics,

rehab, or 12 step programs,

sit cross legged on the floor

talking about Alanon, Alcoholics Anonymous,

Hard Love, or about hardly any love at all.

She & her group are in & out

of therapy, a lot. Artistic types.

Each one intense, about everything.

The women refuse to shave anything.

They believe in pyramid power:

eat Sea Grass, Ginseng, Bee Pollen & wild Sea Kelp.

They sit together talking & talking

about Georgia O’ Keefe & Frieda Kahlo.

As I sit

thinking of the energy

it takes to go in and out

of clinics, workshops, support groups,

a woman of the ARTS

walks over & says:

I sing opera out my asshole.

What’s your repetoire? I inquire.

"Mostly Wagner, but I do some Bizet.

Would you like my ass to perform?"

Her buttocks would send Rubens for oils.

David for marble & Persian poets could

achieve religious rhapsody.

If ancient Helen’s face launched a thousand sails,

this ass could force the evacuation

of the fishing fleet from San Pedro Harbor.

"Would you like to hear

The Ride of the Valkyries?"

I would.

Her face tightens to a fist,

something burbles and rumbles.

Suddenly, she farts:

spraying the thin young men

with a dewy-brown-patina

There’s scattered applause.

Ever seen talent like mine? she asks.

I smile.

Walk over to her purse, open it,

pull out my pecker & start peeing.

It makes a noise like water

falling

into a hollow bucket.

I fill it up.

The applause was thunderous.

We never discussed ART again.

THE JOURNALS

Reading another poetry journal poem

is a like being told you have colon cancer.

Nothing could be less engaging.

Even mold and scum on sullied water

serves the purpose of purifying the whole.

But a poem smashed lifeless on a naked page

like a jay-walking paraplegic squished

by a cement truck on a mean L. A. street

is more than I can read.

Indeed,

the thought of being cast-away

on some Pacific Island with nothing

to read but some lame-shit-workshop-poetry,

is enough to make you willing

to fuck a hairless monkey

in hopes of getting

the Ebola virus or worse.

As I was mulling over this and

other oddities of the known world,

a drunken numbers teacher

from the college where I sometimes teach

knocked and pounded for admittance,

slouched into a chair, and announced

he had come to read his latest poem.

He said it was a little something for the Paris Review.

He began. Pop art Boomerang freak-out Crash!

Unless you could imagined how these words

would sound moving sideways in an elliptical

bowl of sky they made no sense at all.

I figured his chances for publication were good.

I stared out the window at my Japanese Garden.

It was the best and the worst of all possible times.

I believe I nodded off near the 30-minute mark.

It was somewhere near a cacophonous sea

that I tilted into a purple sleep.

In my dream