Persistence of Memory

by Esto Banga

Here on Jackie's coffee table
there is a book of paintings by
Salvador Dali a dead
Spanish painter who went insane
after waxing his longhorn
moustache with crazy glue to
a mirror for twelve days
while standing in two bowls of
chunky chicken soup

he's got one called
Persistence of Memory
in which some plastic watches
are melting on their tables
late in July somewhere in
Utah or we could guess
Spanish Utah
maybe eight years before the Spaniards
discovered steel watches and
stopped leaving them outside under
about a kazillion birds
or flying IRS agents with
no love for art at all

one of the watches rides a long dead
fish like a saddle which is Salvador's
way of saying that in Spain
time is a drooling cowboy who traded
his crumbly steed Elmo for a flounder
after some tequila spit card game
with five dope merchants
in the back of a jimmy van
and later puked out hard years of
stored up lonesome songs
that he gave to chocolate Juanita
who had a furry baby in a
rag paper blanket

and one of the watches is hanging
in a tree being left there
to dry out and this is saying
we are all being left in a tree
to dry out while time dances
somewhere else with someone
elses' wife for someone else's
money maybe someday we'll be
someone else but not before
time rolls over in its sleep
and dreams of tall grass
lemon meringue pie
and naked snatch halfway
to Spanish Utah

and one of the watches is
slipping over the edge of the table
because no one noticed
it was telling time
better than expected given the
general lack of consideration
these days for good time keeping
or a really honest watch

its got a spider on its face
a reminder about personal hygiene
or a deep message to management
look fellows the poor spiders are
bigger than the rich spiders
and there are more of them and
a lot of poor fat Spanish spiders
are lined up behind the donut boxes
just waiting their turn

like this last watch
which is face down in the dirt
it died saluting its country
or maybe got pissed on by
its girl friend
a black widow named
Bethjean who wears a wool hat
and smells sweet like some rat poison

and on its back a
whole platoon of just
regular ants some
doing a square dance
some running numbers for
an ant boss with cigars in
both mouths
some wearing tight pants
for giggly ant girls with
exciting ant bulges
the ants can smell them even
in Spain

then off in the distance you
can see the rock of Gibraltar
just like it was when Columbus
a man with a fairly bad complexion
and a pushy personality
sailed off to discover South Carolina
and claim it for the Spaniards
and call it the New World
even though it had been there
all along
waiting like a
rubber movie monster
for Salvador
to come in a melting watch ship
and paint on the Old World
all over again

JESUS' BROTHER

Jesus had an older brother named
Lyle who was going to be
a messiah too except he had a
lisp so when he said
blessed are the peacemakers
people pretty much fell down
laughing so he got mad and
made peace later by
whittling his name on
a few stray phillistines

Lyle did a few of his own miracles
like he once changed a Reuben sandwich
into a likeness of Mother Mary
and a few quarts of cold pilsner
into a few quarts of warm piss
but otherwise nothing to speak of

took a job hawking bibles out of
the back of a blue chevy
had them autographed by his brother
which he thought would
really sell instead got his
eye smacked in by what was either
some bad tempered apostle type
or an out of work pipe
fitter with a bent
finger following a
nose picking event
out by Egypt

had a dead beagle named Ruth
although it was a boy dog
who he kept in the mud room
and figured he'd get around to
resurrecting one day
during a beer commercial

at the crucifixion thing he tried
selling cotton candy
off the back of a camel
made a few shekels which later he blew
printing gethsemane postcards
sold twelve gave the rest to a
brown roman girl with nice legs

and damn got caught getting his
snicker wiped by a shriveled teenager
near the 7- Eleven said
hey look there's no commandment
thou shall not be blown
but the holy family was too
busy thinking up the klan and the nazis
to really help out much

he remembers how back in school
Jesus got all the girls
the cheerleaders and the drum
majorettes with their
twirling hair and crackly
red vests lined up like
roast beef sandwiches
he'd puff in one ear and
hear a tune come out the other

no Lyle he never had a
girlfriend as such no
instead he joined the
AV club and
learned to wire the speakers
at the high school prom
he could really turn on the juice
almost fifteen moments
of pure electric glory
everytime they danced

he had zits big as
peanuts one pair of pants
and a non-matching toga
and smelled like ox wax
beneath his desk
bending to look for
fake dropped pencils
just to peek up a few
skirts
the air was clear and sweet
down there

and life was simple straight on
none of that wandering in the
desert ascending descending
or blessing the sheaves or
forgiving the dumb jerks who ran the
Holy Walmart or washing
anybody's feet with the bottom
of his one decent flannel shirt

so God and his drinking buddies
sit around a phoney plastic wood table
and judge everything and everybody
and eat homefries
and divvy up the heavenly rewards

Jesus whose had a pretty rough time
gets his own cushy chair
gets to stay up late most every night
with the snack of his choice

Lyle gets a gold front tooth
a belt buckle with the
carved skyline of Jerusalem
and a new sweater each Christmas

not all bad
at least he never had to
walk barefoot on the lumpy
Sea of Galilee
or raise the dead without
a deal on the movie rights

© Esto Banga, 2003

Esto Banga, one of the world's greatest living poets,
is among the missing. He may be holed up in a shack
in Arkansas--running from the Feds--or he could be on
a tramp steamer somewhere in the North Atlantic,
eating mule and waiting for a break. He published
less than a dozen poems in his lifetime--which may or
may not be behind him--and the ones that follow are
two of them. Enjoy!