spun diner ticket carousel listing prompt auntie M

photo by Charles Negre 1853
Henri Le Secq near the 'Stryge' chimera
Notre Dame de Paris

Sophie sat dead panning fools with gold
during a Schrödinger's cat scan at Bellamy University: 
a limb lent ivy sent us to a hospital soon...

were we poisoned, 
pleasured or 
somewhere 
between 

haberdashery 
haphazardly 
I am taking in 
all the scenery 
the character changing rooms 
are gargoyles we fancied 
they're the large opulent 
can't get out of our own way types 
of peer edged spied 
better to be 
bacteria here, sometimes 
than bones 
flesh and skin 
so plied 
from over a ledge 
out in the open...

there the orderly gave her 
one of his slow-burning looks
said stir-fry palaces were 
ninety-five miles due East
off the main quad 
and were the cause of many 
small seed oil related weather anomalies 
if you are to continue being this curious
please be aware there are
monks chanting in Latin
waiting to journey o'er
clench poet seas 
spin tanneries and a locksmith inn 
draped at near end winter 
in leeward mingle worn moms...

some have straight dark hair
sometimes in ponytails
ecclesiastically
lingering about
a lawn mower
and cocked-robin
casket led dig in idle Hubertus
who lied about the stag 
and his lust to be one 
of the Merovingian kings 

oh, gilded skate silver family rowan tree 
forgotten gardens are often born at night 
mayfly span gingerly wise grabbing reins 
maybe she knows she twirled macabre joy 
from shadows cast about mountains of ash 
she whorled my attention around 
an iron lamp post, a cobble stoned living street 
in her tilted derby hat she wanted me 
to know that her smile 
was a scent I best not forget 

near about bowling green we spied 
an abandoned Paul Bunyan 
a 50's era, roadside attraction 
swallowed by decay 
it is almost beyond view into the forest 
just a squint of a simpler time 
when we were only at 
the precipice of go 
and we decided to 
and most things 
a blur ever since 
slowing down 
to smell the flowered flesh 
of a moment that stops time for you 
seems incongruent with the little beasts we've unleashed...

Pandora and Eisenhower, your super highways are
sped tasked catacomb-ed loam 
filled with dreams deferred 
any sort of stir pot is not to be sanctioned 
as the military industrial complex 
is just now beginning to understand 
what is beyond overt control...

myth and archetype 
from the vaults of Lidsville 
H.R. Puf-n-Stuf 
and Geiger 
went about envisioning 
things alien 
to our cast senses 
of normalcy...

oh ye silver glide over thin ice 
wind in rollers and splendid whites 
we've come to hunt birds like quail again 
and as any dule of doves or covey of partridges 
can attest: a human life is 
meant eventually to be 
articulate whim calciums 
what can be sown poem-ed 
to perfectly green grass come late April 
in the northern climes 
the time of year when 
at apron string length 
everyone is old seed rye again
in New England town squares 
Shirley Jackson high 
waxed on chance 
and ritual killing, culling 
into fertile folds 
what infinity demands 
in exchange for their free will...

and here all this time 
you thought the morning star 
only left handed you an ever thinning blade 
and surgical manual of ritual description 
of what must be beneath that...

also here, curiosity demands 
your empty valence shells  
it demands knowledge
of places inside you 
faith may be born from 
places, you may never 
have been aware of... 
sanctuaries, your soul 
remanded to these bones 
on its way in...

what poem herd?

I am another one of your tintype passengers 
or as Ray Liotta playing the character Krendler 
in the film 'Hannibal' says, what is it currently 
"that smells great"

we coat each breath 
we thirstily exhale
with a bereft of the theft 
of wanting to see 
to believe 
nose knows 
this is where 
we first learn 
to deceive 

hungry collodion 
lungs and accordion 
halide compounds 
are al-chemical agents 
and biologic angels 
sometimes, demons too...

they might say 
in feast before 
the fray...

can you catch 
a soul's 
first wing flap 
or the moment
when a heart 
does break...?

...and are these moments 
meant to be jarred 
cataloge-d and pantr-ied 
with some label you've calligraph-ied 
recording some vague pomp 
and posterity as if you being 
an archivist with a pulpit
was your every destiny's job...

is heaven only
a silver-ed 
sliver-ed 
glass dry plate 
emulsion and subtle 
auto-chrome 
contamination...

is hell just a place where 
there are skeletal remains 
hidden, sunken in when truth fades and erodes 
a gnaw never seen, knives in the wind 
who knew this carriage carried someone 
besides the driver, we found only one spleen...

what then would thou do with this scene...lock it down or make some crown of this royal pain in the ass people have painted inside you...I choose to write and direct my chaos as best I can, milling about the teeming mobs and the slow staved little deaths by hungering for unknown(s)...


(cheap paper Gutenbergs, 
western civilization is 
one big crucible 
to crumble dichotomy 
blah blah blah)

every fucker there ever was 
in recorded history 
came to a here just to be 
Phoenician/Roman/American/Christian/Zion 

just to have future generations say 
we don't want or need 
every fucker there ever will be 
coming to our current here 
just to get shit for free 
or for less than what I paid for it 
bullshit and shenanigans 
folks will say...

oh say can you see 
the fallacy of chasing 
moon-glow-n applications 
for this subsidy or that subsidy 
some here unseen 
purposely or invisible 
just the same cannot end life fast enough 
and for other(s) of us, 
we the people, is an event manipulative minutia harmony 
a rhetoric noise amplification dissonance chant we call beauty...

this is clearly meant to hide all
these paths to the hearts of the matter(s)

 give me nothing 
straight up 
make it a double 
a few extra napkins, keeper 
I am so thirsty 
and a bit too eager 
I know I am going 
to spill some 
while sating...

EJR ©