A missile
jabbed its fist
into the socket
of an asymmetrical
potato boat machine,
causing untold tiers
of military destruction
to squander our hard-
earned resources
on a global scale.
The price of iron
will increase
by about 34% tomorrow,
insiders have been warned.
Something about the vicar
doesn’t inspire much confidence
in me, especially when
I’m trying to keep my balance
on this five-foot stool.
Who thought to make
a piece of furniture
so unwieldy? Why did I buy it
in the first place?
Hippo ate a dipper
of little stellar status
just this afternoon,
swishing his brandy
in preparation
for a siesta
to last seven hours
or six and a half
if he wants
to stop by the bank
before closing time.
A ham and turkey omelette
is all that remains
from what used to be
a proud civilization,
destroyed just this morning
after coffee.
In the weather
and aftermath of said weather
(not something to be foretold,
but guessed at by thousands
of lazy meteorologists),
we shall light the spark
of a righteous flame
and carry it with us
in our pockets.
You understand
that our pants
must be flame-retardant.
You may find such a garment
at your local department store,
wherever pants are sold.
It’s as though we’re filling a leaden cup
with duck blood to be consumed
by the pharaoh of string cheese.
Well, I won’t tolerate such behavior
for the rest of this semester.
It constitutes cult status, you understand.
I have no desire to mix myself
in your intransigence. Damn you and your
thinking ahead for the sake of humanity
and the powerful leader we will all come to know
as Trumpola. Trumpola— the fine carnival barker,
the one they sneer at and jeer at
until the cows come home and make us all knife
into the water from at least 10 meters in height.
A few of us will bellyflop and really leave
a nice red mark. One of those red marks will resemble Oklahoma.
Well and so I say to myself, and to myself I say,
that the greatest impediment to the thing that we call life
happens to be the calm mother rearing casualty
socked against a mitten’s worth of snake skin
for what we’d say is the majority
of our public strict seniority
or the face of the ever-stitching grin.
To the ever sticking gin,
to the floor it wants to fall
as the bottle shatters by itself
no intervener’s call
can ever save that glass from smithereens.
We enter to a saloon, drenched in bourbon, rye and spit
to overhear a conversation held out of sheer boredom.
Is it the western kind of sentiment? Well, what have these men ever known? Can you blame them for their arrogance or siphoning of time through their wide-brimmed attitude and cavalier pistol pittance?
I’d say not, and they wouldn’t even know what you’re talking about, anyway. They’d say son, why do you have to go on and do something that foolish? My associate and I were simply discussing the nature of livestock in commerce, as our mutual acquaintance had recently put us into contact for a business deal. Now why in the name of God did you have to go on and make such a dadburn fool of yourself?
It’s at this time we see the protagonist spit into the spittoon (where else) clear across the bar, traveling something like thirty feet and smacking square on. PTING.
WHARVED 