RIKKI SANTER - POEMS

Rikki Santer’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications both nationally and abroad including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East,  The Journal of American Poetry, Hotel Amerika, Crab Orchard Review, Grimm, Slipstream and The Main Street Rag.  Her work has received many honors including five Pushcart and three Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.   Her eighth collection, Drop Jaw, inspired by the art of ventriloquism, was published by NightBallet Press in the spring. Please contact her through her website:   www.rikkisanter.com

​Figure Makers

​Brothers George & Glenn McElroy are considered the
Stradivariuses of ventriloquist figure makers. It’s estimated
that only 30 of their creations from the 1930/40s exist today.
 
 
Palimpsest of fingerprints
on a legacy of head sticks
& levers from master
machinist & artist brother--
intricate doings lying
in wait for the flash
& the flaunt.
 
Candies & cakes pale
next to Jacko the talking monkey,
wild elf atop Russian hurdy gurdy--
he’s another Cadillac of a dummy,
Fabregé of sweet gears.
 
Magical apparatus these
strange gifts, temporal &
timeless, every McElroy
offspring: Cecil, Ollie,
Dudley & Troll, man-sized
animatronic named Umpire.
 
Poetry in hacksaw & sander,
monkey business in eyes
crossing, ears wiggling,
tongues sticking out.
 
In the museum Jacko poses--
wunderkind spirit,
parody in an organ grinder’s suit,
perhaps pining
for a full moon’s treetop.
 
All Figure Makers step back,
leave us to the clockwork
of our days, vulnerable
machines in silence.
 
 
 

Señor Surreal

[Señor Wences] was the one who… stopped using
a dummy, which is the gutsiest thing you can do
in a ventriloquist act.  That’s like Metallica coming
out and doing something a cappella.
                        —Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller
 
 
By s’awright s’awright I mean Monday
morning after Ed Sullivan Sunday nights,
when our geography class was a ping-pong
salsa of s’awrights until Mr.Kaminsky
scowled with detention threats.
 
By s’awright s’awright I mean Spanish
clouds of tilde that didn’t need a joke to
float. Etcetera his territorial tract with
a wacky swivel chair of voices.
 
We cottoned to his weird decoys--
feisty falsetto, box of severed head,
mundane scraps of conversation with
a lipsticked hand.
 
By s’awright s’awright I mean a matador
with a meringue cape dispatching cigarette
smoke rings & spinning plates teetering
atop flamingo legs, ees bery nice.
 
 
 ​