Aaron Bauer

Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves on Colfax Ave.

Here, any stop light morphs to palm tree
and diner table, sand dune. They call it
a mirage, but don’t believe them.

          Open singsing.
                    Open cecil.
                              Hmmph…
But spinach (like a bullet) yields at,           open sezs me.
And his treasure becomes his trap,
breath becomes his treasure.

Admit the villain his villainy and phonograph’s
amplifier echoes theme he composed so
newscasters can hum.
                    (What comfort
a soundtrack can give any event,
          fear
                    or disgust
                              or elation.)
                    The joy is in
repetition. Play it. Play it again,
so we know in what gaze to hold our head.
Bludgeon a man once
                              it’s assault.
Five times, comedy.
                              Make it six.

 

On Klimt’s The Kiss

All that remained was her beauty.
-Metamorphoses I.552

Here I have caught you, with voyeurs’ voices
echoing the granite hall. Is it their eyes
the circles and dots on your cloak recount?
Areola, insect bite, puncture wound?

An unknown mind brought genesis to his eyes,
a righteous debauchery. And I feel
a child, catching a glimpse of events
not yet understood. Is it resentment
of my ignorance that turns your face,
so his concealed lips miss their mark?
I would hate to have that power.

He longs to possess you, braid your hair
into his fingers. It is not sunbeams
pulling amber tones from clothing and foliage
but fire’s sheen on grasses, and on brambles.
These same branches that slit crimson on your legs,
before he caught you, before he wrestled
you to knees.) Flames, licking from this man.

And man, your clutching hands divulge your mind,
          Woman, you come undone in my grip,
          you slip away. With the vines spilling
          out from legs, tethering to earth.

 

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Author Bio

Aaron Bauer lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, with his partner and daughters. He received his undergraduate degrees in Music and English Literature from the University of Colorado, and is teaching and taking classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is the editor for the literary journal Permafrost, and his work has appeared in Spillway, Superstition Review and other literary journals.