5 Poems by Gloria Avner

YOKO AND THE NAKED BOTTOMS

I was recruited by a friend in London 1967
a publisher of first edition
American poetry a friend
of Tony’s her husband
(before John)
to be in Yoko Ono’s movie

she needed asses
battalions of bare buttocks
the camera would
focus on the juncture
where thighs
cheek bottoms
and ass crevice meet
to make a moving sign of the cross

take off your clothes please
step up on the platform
hold on to the arm bar
and walk the moving turntable
giant record player
automated
pottery kickwheel
just you walking
and the camera
focused on your crack

10 or 15 seconds each
I forget how long or how many of us
but I was number 27
saw the film just once
and found the shifting faceless
walking crosses fascinating
focus shift from fat to skinny old to young
flabby to rock hard and muscled
five and a half minutes
of Yoko Ono filmography
disappeared

TANGANYIKA STRUT

lean as bean poles
itching to dance they hang
stiff
side by side
he with small penis
she with barely wider hips
sweet sculpted breasts
both with inlaid silver pins
centered in their lozenge eyes

tiny hands attached
to long naked thighs
hand carved wood as tall
and black as the ones
at home
who would hold them

dance partners
rhythm pounders
keep time
and company
young men leap free
from gravity in the arms
of ancestors

not my tribe they shout
silent pinned
to this gallery wall

THE LIGHT

let’s have a new religion
based on gratitude
not fear

shift of focus
from the blues of dying parents
lost hearing aids and teeth
menacing hallucinations
in black fedora hats

to Fibonacci series
June geometry
spring green ficus leaves
deep orange rainbows
poinciana blossom crowns
down the median strip of U.S 1
the scent and sight of fuschia
frangipani blooms
pure as sex on a stem

rays of blue grey sky
in stripes and curlicues
all my giant windows
let in the light

THE STREET

there is no poetry in Wall Street
no room for anything but want
and rumor

If my dragon were home today
I’d mount her
toast marshmallows on her breath
fling them into brokers windows
swoop through towers
stop the phones
make the pissants
and the giants pulling strings
come down to earth
plant organic squash and beans

SIT ON MY CARPET

Beluchi reds and black and cream
hand knotted
while the master sings
an ancient pattern
to nimble fingered girls

sit with me
and fly past mountain
ridges to the outer edge
of Bedouin deserts
Sufi dance halls
without walls
under stars
dressed in a thousand strands
of goulamine beads

naked footprints
messages in sand
lie with me