Cacoethes

The Sherry Gland
 
 
1  An orchestra is guaranteed for the assassination
 
The stream tried to get drunk upon its trout
Tried to go to the plaza by way of the trout factory,
Tried to be calm as a trout leaning against a bicycle,
but there was a fire on the train, so he couldn’t.
 
The moon continued trying to warm to the subject at hand
“An extremely ugly blind girl in a veil,”
but the veil was really a whip, so he couldn’t.
 
A long, waxy avenue with cherubs sticking out.
God smoking a bone pipe in a high-backed chair
trying to read Ben-Hur by the light of his fever.
The involuntary mirror adrift in the smell of lilies.
The small, curved wolves of the roaring water
surrounded by tiny yet disagreeable horses
looking out from windows
upon the aging goldfish with bronchitis.
“Welcome to Mandalay!”
embroidered upon a seine net.
 
 
2  the rain’s current condition is classified
 
You’ll find a hyena seated at the head of the table.
Send a postcard with its picture
if you could
If you could
inscribe a hammer with a thousand tiny apologies
and make a rabbit for the hyena to wed
out of a bed of mushrooms
painted white and standing erect
the second-best bed
like two hands in a jar of black cypresses
reaching for a derby and a sword
if you could.
If you could
give the infant a cigarette.
 
 
 3  evening conversation / a limpet on a rock
 
Very thin, the pheasant was moving
white stones next to a dark man.
Nothing personal, but a slight bitterness
ending in a pair of red bedroom slippers
covered in an perturbation of pale blue birds
until it looked like a wooden radio
coming up the drive.
 
 
4  from the wooden radio (but please just go)
 
Chirrucurrarrachirracucucu
is a format of diversion
step away step away
from the wooden radio,
please.
Go back full or go back empty.
It is most like an auburn dinghy the Mister
shall have painted green
for the festival.
The daughter shall admire its yaw.
Mother exhibits her complex.
 
Chirrucurrarrachirracucucu!
So why kid a kidder, my wicked Waikiki?
Freedom is game
step away step away
from the wooden radio,
please.
Go back full or go back empty.
Children are a threat to celebration the Mister
shall have painted green
for the festival.
The daughter shall alphabetize the dirt.
Mother desires a kitchen window.
 
And yet
we have nothing
to do with it
I am told.
I am told a lot.
 
Chirrucurrarrachirracucucu
is a format of diversion
step away step away
from the wooden radio,
please.
Go back full or go back empty.
 
 
5  recollection of a small apartment
 
The memory curves or splits,
the garden freezes its trout,
and a passing warmth
assembles its leaves
into a workbench
beneath a bee.
The tripling of the hives
westward, beyond
the three old stills. Meaning
matters most
to meaninglessness—
a refresher course
(held outdoors each Saturday)
on the sad fate of vines,
blackened with trout.  
 

RE-MOBILIZATION