Maurice Oliver Poems

Maurice Oliver spent almost a decade working as a freelance photographer in Europe. Then, in 1995 after returning to America, he made a lifelong dream reality by traveling around the world for eight months, recording his experiences in a journal instead of pictures. And so began his desire to be a poet. His poetry has appeared in The Potomac Journal, Circle Magazine, Bullfight Review, Tryst3 Journal, The MAG, Pebble Lake Review, Eye-Shot, The Surface, Wicked Alice, WordRiot,  Taj Mahal Review(India),  Stride Magazine(UK), Retort Magazine(Australia), & online at undergroundvo ices.com, tmpoetry.com, zafusy.com, subtletea.com, friggmagazine.com, girlswithinsurance.com, & interpoetry.com(UK). He currently lives in Portland, Oregon where he is a tutor.His poetry blog can be visited at: www.bloxster.net/mauriceoliver

The "Necessity" Of Plainspokenness

Using one example of the shrewd writing in this
remarkable memoir:

then, years later the double-agent in me re-surfaces
through
the trap door of wild applause & enters one buck tooth
skull of attic covered moss when stained by a fistful
of my own matrix

causing me to firmly believe in the feather boa fur
tortoise lava snake of diamond dazzling lizards if at
all possible with just a fresh bouquet of flowers in
my head hollering at fifty-cents

I shave a seam of crystal some of quartz in a bale of
afternoon hamstring soaking to sneak a peek or a pinch
of salt bandages?
pain-killers? sniffer's glue? or the wrong size flame
thrower

or maybe just to crunch the ad-lib extra fruity
splendor of some
ceiling in several tones of monosyllables never
knowing it's
a verb with the guts to probe & challenge any
participants my

only hope is to apply the glue to the chipped cupful
of a wiry
universe dried up in a riverbed then pencil-in the
motorcade
crawling through an avery mudslide secured by a rubber
band

or as bamboo is to a panda or that unusual birthmark
bare seat
through the projector so hold your breath & keep
breathing or at least answer your telephone then we
can quarrel if nothing else
 

Yet All The Time, Finite By Infinite...

using almost any type of foreign currency counting
last night's
moon & paying no attention to the tree-lined promenade
wrapped
in bourgeois stars might concern you or tricked to
tick went
the noisy clock above radio static written on a scrap
of paper:

for instance
that broccoli field on any given Sunday
displaying good manners while rain wears
a yellow slicker with its baseball cap turned
backwards by which only the initiated my gaze:

or a March of arithmetic in what amounts to sheet
music
composed in a world where the sun could die after
smoking
a pack of Gauloises:

so if this be the case than rise to the occasion noble
people
of a strong wind so it can lift you off the sidewalk
in flame-colored feet over eyes of a dove where starry
needles sew &
unsew a verse that sleeps under heavy blankets and
sometimes
even uses a hot water bottle on the extremely cold
nights.


An Immortal Tale, Using Its Original Shadow

& the only thing
he's sure of is he's asleep & dreaming. night
could be humming to itself
or dawn could be tapping a finger against
the drawn window shade. the hotel room
could be tiny & damp or as vast & arid as the mohave
desert. either way,
it will still hang on a straight
back chair along with yesterday's wrinkled
shirt. both have a tale to tell but
the room's is the most interesting.& even though it
may seem like a foolish gesture
he smiles in his dream because he knows that
when he gets up he will stumble
over his shoes. the trash will continue to blow down
the sidewalk outside & into the gutter.
morning air will stir what's
left of the leaves on their branches to the point of
sending the more adventurous ones right
into the grand old lobby of the
rundown hotel. all that he's sure about. but what he's
not sure of is if he should hum along
out loud together or concentrate on just the chorus.