Talking Heads Acrostics #1-3
The Talking Heads Acrostics
a poetry series based on the band’s song titles
I
New Feeling
Now I begin again
Everyone watches
White doves flutter in my heart cage
Francine is singing like dark water
Eels slide inside her voice
Everyone listens
Longing for the electric touch
I place my hands on my dove heart
Now I begin again, I
Go speak into the microphone of love
II
Tentative Decisions
The train whistle wakes
everyone in this
neighborhood.
Tracks run
across the back alley all the way
through to uptown where
ivy covered buildings
veer upwards toward blue sky and
each eye opens to their own alarm.
Down here the houses are
electric blue, pink, emerald green
colors that remind the neighborhood of
island summers
sand and singing palms—
images from a relative postcard.
Out in the yard a grey dog barks at a
nesting mockingbird. His one note
sings for everyone, both night and day.
III
Oh-Oh Love Comes to Town
Under the feathery red maple
hovers a small miracle—
outlandish as it may seem
here is the heart of the matter:
Long have we waited for these
overtures to begin, now
Venus is in her
element and heartbeat
Comets ensue. We are
overcome with bits of memory: a
marble, the feeling of the counter under your flat palm,
everyone still asleep and you alone in the kitchen
sipping Café Bustelo and
trying to identify the morning birdsong.
Other people drink behind their windows,
towels wrapped around wet heads,
overlooking tiny signs of evolution:
wind caressing leaves on the camilla, the
nest of crows that rustles in the palm next door.
