Two Poems

Nina Corwin

What's the Deal, Chameleon Man?

What's this I hear about freelancing? Someone
be flashing himself on the internet – backroom
floozy on a bluestreak : call you-know-who.

And now for the whitewash.      Your moniker
pasted on top of the others, emblazoned on kiosks
and floating marquees (with mustache-and-ruffle

disguise). Like a gopher and peripatetic,
you keep popping up with a goulash of gigs
below scale and scalping. Be careful: 

the union's about to send scab letters, send in
that clown of a steward with poisonous pen.
The grapevine's got pictures (though blurry)

of somebody copying dollars, turned green
in the process.                     A warranted word, s'il vous plait:
There's a handy ransom levied

on that limber skin. A quarantine
against your andromeda strain. My phone
has been ringing with questions.     And still

you insist with a capital I  I  I    of lavish denial
(your M.O. all over), a telltale seating chart etched
on your abdomen : evidence there :

that's the blacklisted ticket! Somewhere a chest
balloons this-wise promoting generic Jehovahs
and cutouts that look just like you. Who approximates

gigolo (left me to drown in my monotone marinade).
Even as spit glams the brim of your best brimstone hat. 
Is there any best left of the mortal in you? You peddler

of mischief and genderbent profiles
(silicone implants recalled long ago). The pictures
imply a reptilian resemblance, the coldblood

-ed markup, the Molotov cocktails clinking
a quicksilver halo of happenstance. Soon for the soup
and the burner, your color coat bleeding all over

***

Rock Maybe – Or Hard

Either bearing up or breathing barely.
A jangle of jingles w/trademarks infringed. 

Scotland Yard's been wired, sends
a monocle and sleuth to rescue (maybe

apprehend). Allegedly the suspect's
holed up in a storm drain

playing everyman or passing
for generic. Plans are hatched to tease him

out with cattle prods and carrots.
Word has it he's gone

leathery, long of tooth. Between
points A and B, the treachery

of images: the pipe that says it isn't
(or a painting by Magritte).

Someone pulls a judas
number from the trapper hat.

Holds a fist of buttercups beneath
the lizard chin. Imbuing

yellow blush or not, and look!
the sight lines fit. At last,

we see him (or his representing).
Now we're closer. Closing in.

Nina Corwin is the author of Conversations With Friendly Demons and Tainted Saints. Her second collection, The Uncertainty of Maps is forthcoming from CW Books in 2011. Recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her work appears or is forthcoming in ACM, Forklift OH, Hotel Amerika, New Ohio Review/nor, Parthenon West, Southern Poetry Review and Verse. Psychotherapist in daylight hours, she has twice served as guest editor for Fifth Wednesday Journal.

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