Poem by Bill Mohr

The Scavengers Of Paradox
 
None of his five siblings are allergic to geraniums.
One bird with a bright yellow beak and red legs flaunted its remiges.
Neither twin dyed her hair to resemble damaged window blinds.
 
Hoodlums seek the etymology of private neighbors.
Particles trap the oscillation of slushing nitrate.
Devoid of any one nuance, kitchen counters.
 
None would speak up for the janitors in Florida in 1953.
One returned to his job from a tour in the Turkish boondocks.
Neither rejection defined even a first attempt.
 
A beautiful outlaw crops the photographs of last summer’s picnic.
Whose feet wiggled the topiary rummaging in this wine?
Guilliame  X. Radillon still seeks the fool’s gold of timelessness.
 
None managed to hold on to the capsized boat long enough.
One ship almost spotted the dolphins before they submerged.
Neither the dream of evanescent suspense nor waking up confused us.
 
As the Def Parolees are fond of saying, “Property Is Heft.”
All my venture capital is parked in that shopping cart.
The text must be unpacked, before it becomes a misplaced suitcase.
 
One voice found the melody incomplete, a moody cream.
None arranged the sequence so that laughter was a palindrome.
Neither microphone was any more distant than necessary.
 
How else could impulses arrange the wooden shelves?
Art teaches us how to please an insatiable companion.
Sultry mulch puts the touch on inherent reversals.
 
Neither sliver was a parenthesis of gratitude.
One asterisk prodded the keyboard’s local debt.
None could finger the suspect’s infundibular gimmick.
 
Wisdom is rarely playful, except after long meditation.
Abruptly as a subterfuge, words without memories swim.
How often do I have to tell you I don’t like microwaved popcorn?
 
Neither sentence recanted its sovereignty.
One actress turned her back on the illustrious prevaricator.
None oiled down the whimsical notches.
 
The binding is imaginary, like the space heard between words.
Subcutaneous repositories inhale the memory of beans with garlic.
A lifted thought, unshifted: feisty tryst, iced coffee, western drawl.

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Bill Mohr’s collections of his poetry include Hidden Proofs (1982), Vehemence (New Alliance Records, 1993), Bittersweet Kaleidoscope (2006), and a bilingual selection of poems, Pruebas Ocultas (Bonobos Editores, Mexico, 2015). The Headwaters of Nirvana / Los Manantiales del Nirvana will be published by What Books in 2018. His account of West Coast poetry, Holdouts: The Los Angeles Poetry Renaissance 1948-1992, was published in 2011 by the University of Iowa Press. He has edited or co-edited three anthologies of Los Angeles or West Coast poets. After years of working as a typesetter, Mohr returned to school, got a Ph.D. in Literature from UCSD in 2004, and has lived in Long Beach and taught at California State University, Long Beach since 2006. His honors include a visiting scholar residency at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

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