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EDITORIAL

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Three Poems
by Daniela Olszewska


The Pet Psychic

The at-home viewers require a bit of the sparkling sadistic. The Stage Hand chains the ones with open circulatory systems to the faux crystal balustrade. A scratchy white elephant trunk sprays liquid opiate into The Lovely Assistant. Enter The Pet Psychic, alias John Doe. Around the applause, switches get thrown back. The fortune machine gives off Ferris wheel light. Soft-cornered pinkiegreenish bounces off the vials of ground up stuff. A Woman Holding A Striped Cat is escorted Center Stage and seated in a beaded chair. The Pet Psychic, nicknamed Cannibal Bob, flashes A Winning Smile. He says the password in crescendo. Bipedal collective flinch. Something like lightening. A Striped Cat purrs and The Lovely Assistant hands A Woman Holding the following three photographs of: (1) A dead bird that is not a pigeon. (2) Some chopsticks wrapped up in red tissue paper. (3) A floating orb with pieces of human face poking through the cheap spots.

Jane Doe Takes A Bath

The soap is ovaled like a doll’s genitals.

Overhead fan makes the bubbles behave.
Like over-caffeinated ghosts.

She is a container full of electrolyte imbalance.
Like the color of a polyurethane duck.

The paper tub, the checkerboard tub, the bow-shaped tub.
And this one is just right.

She keeps the distinguishing characteristics of the North-American Bathing Beauty.
    White gills on the inner thighs.
    Smallpox vaccine on the charm bracelet.
    A tendency to blink all through the movie.
    Belief that voyeurism is the sincerest form of flattery.

Jane Doe and The Socialist Folk Singer

Looked up to see
A container full
Of goat bones
Dressed in shining
Amour.
Sat cross-
Legged atop
A four-letter
Word.
Planted a picnic
And crayoned
Smiling mammals
All over
The margins.
Exchange of
Cigarettes,
Blue ribbons,
Spare anchors.
Then the wane
Prosaic.
You accused
My phrasing.
Said I sounded
Like a person
With an S
Typed in front.