Altered Vestibule

I opened the door
and took the change of mind
On the bricks I sat
and whistled to the right

Well
there it goes
just like that - into the overflown kiddie pool
Meshed into the mud
Licking the mud like your looking
   for that perfect high
Laying aghast in the house's shade - 
      where from moments indoors
I do not live - at times -
My hunger, at times, confines me
into a treacherous lawn chair
posing so arrogant
making a radiant curve
in its belonged to space
breathing through the dog
            who is thirsty and lays similarly

Maybe it's time to say
Hello everybody
I mean 
the group of severed bushes
                        for crying out loud!

Time to admit that the lawn
never commits to combing its
green sharp hair
up and back to sleep

Time to wear the beer belly
and play it a timpani
a ceremonial reason
a ritual of thieves who came to hurt
  robbing you of your maternity - 
                   filling you like a tub with
                                               fat layers
                  that wiggle madly to pop radio

Time to make shit happen
as if
the sound of ongoing traffic
                             for the love of god

Louis Bardales is from Chicago, where he graduated from Columbia College’s undergrad poetry program. His work has appeared in the Columbia Poetry Review. He also writes and translates his own work into Spanish. He now lives in Chicago where he works at the Old Town School of Folk Music. 

Images by Elfie Hintington courtesy of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

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