Rick Lupert

Poetry from Sinzibuckwud!

A Cross-Species Relationship is Not Forged

The bunny on the Allentown lawn
is right not to trust me

I would just talk to him about
unpopular wars

and the rising cost
of carrots

On The Road Again

The first sign we see on the way to Canada says
“Welcome to New Jersey”.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

A Day of Excess

The pictures on the website do not do justice to
the meals Stephan prepares at our bed and breakfast.
French toast and fresh fruit drizzled in something
golden and sweet.

We spend the day in museums looking at art
from all time periods. A trip to the Atwater Market
entrusts a boy at the cheese shop to prepare us
a plate of his favorites.

A fresh baguette and an iced tea later and
we are in business.  We could eat cheese in prison
and it would be like a vacation.

More art and then an hour of wondering what to do
which was really an excuse to do nothing.
A walk up a street, closed off, perhaps permanently
for whatever needs the word festival after it that week.

There are men holding hands in the street.  There are women
walking arm in arm.  This is the Latin Quarter and the artists
are unappreciated in their tents…some of them anyway.
Did I mention we gave five dollars American to the

woman with the clip board who asked us if we
had heard of the missing children? It is true.
We Metro it back to one place and walk up Rue St. Denis.
This is the street of our content.  This is where the excess happens.

In no need of dinner we have tapas.
Things are done with potatoes and asparagus.
One of us is seated on a swing.

We walk to the cinema to determine if the films are dubbed or subtitled.
Nothing tells us anything.  So it’s back to the street and
Juliette Et Chocolat where caramel crepe, peanut butter brownie,
and chocolate mojito are brought to our table.

Much of this goes into our mouths.  Wisely, not all of it.
We forgo a beer stop as our stomachs are threatening
to buy one-way tickets without us.
Two important things are said on the way back.

One, after a glance into a crowded bar, blues musician on stage,
is if only we were night people. The second, after a week of
dealing with exploded pen residue in the backpack, is
Yes, the keys are in the pocket that turns me blue.

We return to our room,
white as the day we were born,
no idea what we’ll do tomorrow.

The Response Here to San Francisco’s Left Heart

appears on a mug
in a tourist shop reading
I lost my ass in Montreal.

Underground City

You can be underground for
weeks in Montreal, never without food,
never without a place to shop
never coming up for outside air.

Unlike in Los Angeles where the
underground is occupied by roots
and failed basements.
Where if the palm trees don’t

see you outside they
will miss you. They
will call your mother.