Four

Exapno Mapcase

Why you're brightening like a firework
In this photo with Cooper
It’s the Great Wall of China
Explosions in the afternoon caused ashfall in Puebla
The street looks like they threw flour
A Halloween trick
Shoot the talcum to me malcolm
There you are with the fortune teller in your arms
Madame bona fide slot machine penny arcade
If she could pull a Frankenstein
On Gertrude Stein I'd pay $20 for a reading
And here's Jean in the middle of the road
Between the Dome and the Rotonde
The museum goers are straining to see
Longer loans were removed from galleries
Your great aunt read the words then pronounced them
She had the guts of Delvaux
I think her hair was parted by a spear like the Greeks
For a faithful reflection in mercury and polished glass

A Comet

They don't use cars much here in Venice
Unreal traffic and the people change slowly
Now and then I go veering
Brains abluster from the pastry décor
(That's what my situationist neighbor calls it)
Which has begun to look familiar
Postmodern or postmortem?
I'll never get over the alps
Sure I'm pissed
But I'm no morose type
Hopping from planet to planet
Bringing joy whenever I go
Inverses appeal to me
The tenor steps aside for the flautist

Virginia O'Brien's deadpan lullaby kills me every time
If I had blood I'd be blushing
Lately I'm all electric brain
(That's what my landlady says)
I try to find time not gravely for others
Reading under an elm at the cemetery
She said she'd like more sincere friends
That made me laugh which pissed her off

When the connection got fuzzy I didn't speak up
I simply cut the line
I'm still in the book
Much later night fell kerplunk on the guggenheim grotto
And there was music without wrinkles

Venetian water tastes pissy
For comic effect
I feel funny
But nobody's laughing at this jubilee
Rose eats a nectarine in the sun
With bubbles in her hair
She's getting loose with a jerk
Wearing pince nez and fake hair
He takes a pebble out of her slipper
And swallows it
She's afloat
Everything not feathers is a goner
Which makes me feel funnier
Human cannonball or comet scene
Isn't laughter the proper response?
Well I'm not going to apologize
My heart is doing a bolero

To Mikel de Olivetti

Bright light is what you need
Let’s go over to the window

*

R.does it by himself
In fifteen days

*

Against the holiness
Of the blooming desert

*

In a book of here
All valley
Rumors and quakes

*

My dogs all broke and went ahead

*

Homer appeared

*

Without evasion
By a single metaphor

*

She did a country sway
Where you moved
To songs of summer
On the street and in my car

*

Oooh none of them are mine
How does it feel to love?

*

When a man’s whole frame
Is obvious to a flea

*

In utter defiance of sense

*

She’ll tell you
It’s the only way to be

*

The rising curves
Of the partitions
Give the occupants an air of being
Ludicrously suspended
In mid air

*

Free ambient effects
On a rainy day in May

*

Everything flies
That has wings

*

A few nights in a yurt
Plywood and reclaimed fur
Seem to be a cure all

*

The wildflowers are out
On dog mountain

*

I wake up

Scarlet Tangent

I don't doubt you’re on your way
I know you are
Coming by train
A man was said to have ended his tomb period
By taking a little trip through the sky
Like a bird Saint Francis was dreaming of
The wind carried the cotton away
From a wood tree
Anywhere you look is a blur
Sunlight bounces off the rain
Pools flank the embankment

Stay awhile here
Look at this picture
A Buffalo in the tall grass in 1670
Some girls were heard
Chirping on the bridge

We rarely look at TV
Or talk on telephones
Sometimes we inhale smoke
Guys around here suffer
With hair on their faces
There's a lot to cover
These are unremarkable men
Where I used to live it was common
To hide behind a curtain
With a stomach ache
A little fire snapped at your heels
A local mime once foiled a holdup
Sometimes he caught the evening train