Dan Magers
Hippie Cult: Summer of Death
The clouds are shapes of things we did together
before we slept. In California
the kids reported days would last a week.
The drugs and yoga, rites of worship. First,
my legs would cramp; then I forgot my legs
and heard the howl of elms in gusts of wind
as long as there are leaves. Invented words
describing him in meditation, how
he reappeared to Susan at the other side
of Spahn Ranch. Sought instruction, gave our thanks.
The sky the grass is dark beneath performs
a miracle that leaves no trace of Shorty,
except his clothes in Salvation Army stores,
as proof the physical's no longer needed.
St. Sebastian School: House of Lust
Matters of the soul discussed in class.
In carpets plush enough for sinking knees
chaotic glimpses of the self are found.
We smell the weaker ones—they're fed to those
developed, subtle tastes for shaving Sam
the parlor boy (he masturbates to shapes).
And Vincent Martin, Prince of Jai Alai
will take suggestion from a reading of
the smuggled memoir, Chas DeEberle's:
"When I arrived in LA, I grabbed flesh."
Religion for the talented, no more
exquisite if behind a glass, applied
directly where it hurts the most, living
flesh into another pulled and torn.
Dan Magers’s first book of poems, Partyknife, (Birds, LLC) is described by Thurston Moore “as if poet-ghost adrift thru dressing rooms backstage taking notes…Writing poems like these is just as good as starting a band.” His writing has been published in Notre Dame Review, Hyperallergic, Vice, Fanzine, the Pen America blog, Barrelhouse, and other places. He lives in Chicago.