My late experiences in a municipal borough
have wrapped themselves around a thirty-foot turtle
and dazed and lethargic I am nevertheless accelerated
into spiraling configurations of lactose-thick dreams…
I seek organismal nourishment
to flavor my spectacles
and a purpose for a sudden military advance,
I play organized frolicments
in my navel receptacle
and search for the aliens in the cuffs of my pants…
Yet the truth eludes me and my trusted merry men
though we steal from the rich and indulge the poor
in all likelihood the inflated oval ball
has stolen our mockeries and rolled out the door…
You search for meaning, for an abundant source,
and find broad-leafed herbs, non-threatening
and we offer little resistance to the distant trumpets
that consume their prey in a complex tangle
of inter-ecological discontinuities…
I’m swindled, I’m cheated
like never before
my sequence of beads have been modernized,
I’m crucified, I’m caught
I’m a back street whore
in a vast area of Antarctica, terrorized…
An old-world bird perched upon my nose
and asked if it could rent my clothes,
I said no…
so it proceeded to fly in a rotational rift
that set small children and their playthings adrift
in rotting holes,
in putrid soup bowls
in old boxes of Cheerios
dusty and damp
with bird-brained sweat
and wiggling toes…
Off an elevated platform with circular windows
I jumped, only to find subterranean stores
and shops filled with gifts for my sisters and aunts
and now we are back to the aliens in the cuffs of my pants:
I flushed and I brushed and I cursed and I bled
yet the grayish-green devils stayed tucked in their beds…
It would be inappropriate for me to affix a stamp
to the crystalline carbohydrates that I mailed first-class
to the owner of a pizzeria selling insecticides
as toppings that distress udders and breasts
sporting cheap imitations of love and regret
all painted on ice-cream sundaes…
With outmoded displays of electric sunrises
I appear as a sultan and other false guises
in order to secure three packets of syrup
that I stick to my spurs and dig into the stirrups
while riding resentments toward the cruelties of life…
where I shift into reverse, smile, and die.
Gold trophy winner
Adding your comment:
