On the themes of Elvis, Rivers and Salt
Clockwork king
Let us make a mechanical Elvis, a cybernetic emissary
for the city of Las Vegas, twenty stories tall,
a hip-swishing colossus to bestride The Strip
at one end. It will be a ten-year endeavor, with
so many cogs and gears to mold,
so many miles and miles of circuitry,
so many algorithms to puzzle through:
eℓvi ∫ a(r) Ωn = Pr(es) L(ey)
What will you be? No mere mannequin,
so much more than a metonym,
something more substantive,
quintessentially je ne sais hunka hunka,
fueled by fried banana sandwiches,
full of fiberoptic veins,
your neural nets tirelessly knitting
oh one one oh one oh one oh oh oh oh
to mimic an authentic Mississippian
thankyewvermuch while seeping
forty-weight, women weeping
at your feet while their panties fill the air.
Our heroes are famous
for what they were, and legends
for what, in time,
they might have been.
And what will you be, o beacon
of hope with plastic Big-Boy hair, o radiant
rhinestoned desert-dwelling welcomer,
o clockwork king, what will you be?
Arroyo
Your blood wells up,
warm blood unfolding from a deep spring
where the saguaro
knows to sink its roots,
where the coyote
knows to pause
before passing into night.
Some nights there is nothing,
but tonight hot stars
dot your waters,
shining like mica flakes,
and a turquoise moon
rises from the canyon,
sighing on your breast.
Radium girl
I knew her late in life,
when she would salt tomato slices
and eat them on the porch
on Sunday afternoons
The last bit was best,
the leftover juice an acid sludge
dredged up with her fingertips
and running down her broken chin
She’d sit and watch the moon
rise like a dirty thumbnail
overhead, the winter sun too weak
to scrub it from the phosphorescent sky
The moon might
be made of salt –
she said – I don’t know
how they know otherwise
They didn’t know the brushtip
she licked to a point
for every minute hand she’d paint
would slowly eat her up
When she died she left behind
homemade sundresses
and blackened silver serving spoons
and fifty years of photographs steeped in closet air
In one she stood in grandpa’s garden,
a manikin among the sunflowers
with a smile that was still a smile,
a shining half-moon silver smile
Author Biography
Patrick Bahls is Associate Professor of Mathematics and Director of the University Honors Program at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. He is the author of Student writing in the quantitative disciplines: A guide for college faculty and his poetry has appeared in Adirondack Review, Eunoia Review, and Unshod Quills.