Did Dottie die
Or did Dottie disappear
To live a different life
In the clear
On a dead-end drive
A deserted Datsun
It would appear the key
Was still in the ignition
In a drawer Dottie’s
Final testament
And a drawing of
A grinning man
In a vestment
Was Dottie’s daring
Past catching up
Had she dotted
All her i’s
Looking at her dour photograph
You can almost see it in her eyes
Are you having this linguine?
You’ve seen me on film and TV
I’ll have a bite off that fork
This is a gd lot of work
You haven’t met me yet
I’ll have that spaghetti
His laugh, like a hyena’s
Caught the ear, pierced by a diamond
She turned, to look behind
“Well, I mean, ahh…”
“If you’d be so kind…”
And yes, she chewed grass
And he was a scavenger
And the fact that he ate unprotected lion cubs
Somehow bumped him up past her former loves.
The strings quickly plucked
Like geese
The drums beaten around
Like ruffians
The pulse of bass
And the jagged guitars
Dragged out of the seventies
The vocals were less emoted
Than gasped, grunted
And groaned
With lyrics as inscrutable
As their facial contortions
Big in europe
But a vanishing act
In their
Homeland
Each album release
A reason for an overdose
Their interviews highly prized
Among reprobates
The vinyl single features
A man with greying beard
Dark eyes
Sitting on a staircase
We look up to the record player
Which like sinewy smoke
Offers the song
The vinyl single photo shifts
A bit as though
The grey has set in further
Or the eyes have
Caught ours
The song has begun to
Haunt
With its tone and chant
Its roaming cadence
We’ve sunken deep into the
Carpet
And the vinyl vibrates
Floats
And
Drops on our noses
The appearance in
The window
Of the figure
Reminded him
Of the
Anonymous letter
The lift of his
Lip
In a sneer
“Dearest cauliflower
Banana
And tomato
There is only
One
Way
For you to go”
The light went out
Entre les siestes Il y a de la vie Entre craps Entre les rêves Il y avait une commande là-bas Ou pas du tout Il y avait un rouge-gorge qui tendait la main Ou bec Un sourire privé à travers une pièce Entre cigarettes Entre les pleines lunes Il y avait quelque chose Un murmure en français Une mélodie Quelque chose qui vaut la peine d’être roulé Entre les siestes Entre les feuilles
The witches noticed
The crispness of the veggies
And into the tart dip they went
Not practicing the dark arts
Just a cozy home gathering
Cauliflower slathering
And the odd curse
On the terse meat eater
Up the block
But the shuttle only went one way
And as the rotation dizzied
And his senses scattered
This was it his day
Which he’d feared the most
And into hyper blast
And a white light all about
He shot into the past
Before he’d been
The rattling subsiding
The greasy hand reaching in
With a peridot ring.
Pulling the strap over
And having the door slammed
By a toothless man with bloodshot eyes
He thought his pulse began to rise
With the rumble and shake he focused
On the galaxy painted on the window
His chest began to tax him but exhilaration
Beneath the tension as he was shot back
And then thrust forward, a whooshing (being) pumped in
And flashing lights where none had been
The tickle at back of neck,
the sluicing along the spine
As he climbed and dipped surpassing the feeling before
Spewing in a bed pan or on a dreadful drip
His fellow astronauts would (briefly) shoot by
A frantic ecstasy in their eyes and his system yet rise
Kicking in a flood of wakefulness
and above the frail specimen he was
He floated, his pains had been demoted
while flipped and flung
In apparent chaotic direction
_
To be continued