Gordon Phipps

Who Are You Wearing?

The parade of heavenly carriages descends to the
    gates of the scarlet glade –
long, well-stocked saloons floating on pressurized
    air,
black or white, their opaque shields conceal divine
     passengers.
Behind densely armed centurions, bleachered rabble
    gasp as the procession hovers, hisses, hums above
    the freshly scrubbed stones.

Behold! They disembark! See them emerge!
    Reborn, upright, fully formed.
The mischievous and the severe, exhilaratingly
    lucid with volitional annual detox,
ageless wonders of rolfed, massaged, Pilates’d,
    coiffeured charisma,
sculpted and painted facades of forced humility,
resplendent in couture colors, the folding drapery 
    oblivious
to recent fluctuations of mass and assemblage.
The breasts are hung low, au naturel,
or pushed up like muffins on a cupboard shelf.

Idly, they wander on layers of rose petals, palm
    leaves, maroon tapestries.
Sans repertoire, they seem almost lost, without
    temples or retainers, with no fire to quell,
     floodwater to still, monster to grapple and
     subdue.
Resourcefully they greet one another as if old
     comrades.
Bare female shoulders and voices ascend as the
     steroid robust males squeeze, single-handed, 
between occasional embraces of awkward civility.
The few, the feminine, reeking of continental citrus
     perfume,
bravely answer the painfully shrieking fandom with
    flashes of blade-skimmed arm sockets
and spontaneous flourishes of calligraphic 
    keepsakes.

Dull in off-the-rack cottons, earnest mortals
     wrangle them into statuesque stillness for
     photographers
or sound bites into a microphone held by an ear-
     plugged high priestess
demanding identities of trainers, tailors, and setters 
     of precious stones.

The virile and the fertile produce evidence of
     rumors and declarations.
Ironically trailing behind, the mermaid Starbucks
     tucks in her tailfin
under a designer train as her chariot crushes the
     bones of her enemies.
A noted player of fools lingers to milk a sight gag.
He drools while straddling a bunted railing past
     scandals of rage and servants –
apparently forgiven due to costly litigation.
Across the valley, the rear fence of his bungalow
    sports his barrister
judiciously deciding where he’s going to put his
    pool.

But alas, they are gone:
They have entered the pavilion to caress celestial
    spheres and phallic swords;
they have benevolent rosters of gratitude to incant,
some extempore, some from secured texts via
    corrective lenses.

But lo, reptiles scurry into the shrubbery,
packs cower,
flocks take flight as the earth rolls in agitation,
cracks open, spewing sulfur, while Pan, habitually
    late,
shamelessly struts by,
his trilateral tail bobbing below his oily and mangy
    cloak.
Cloven hoof prints in La Brea tar steam in the
    twilight.
Tears run as the nauseated purge loudly into
    alcoves.
Teamsters smoke up the loading dock as a
    demimonde entourage looks for contraband in the
    debris:
slaves stoop,
rag-picking piles of Galician veils, Iberian pony-tail
     falls, shawls from Gaul, locks of golden fleece 
     from Thrace, miniature brushes auxiliary and 
     particular, soiled pages of Kabbala literature 
     liberally punctuated with Wasabi sauce.

Soldiers spear cell phones,
winged sandals, trident back scratchers,
sacrificed carcasses,
cruces of timber.
Most valued are black-market Carthaginian cakes of 
     wax for surfboards, sirens, harpies.

Globally, the minions perch
before the glowing Delphic screens
like insatiable nestlings.
For the gods speak only slowly,
only in riddle,
as trip-hop only in rhyme.

____

Gordon Phipps is a playwright, actor, and stage director as well as poet, living in San Francisco.