Elaborate sunset
Whose Hues skew the shadows
To puzzle the night
Elaborate sunset
Whose Hues skew the shadows
To puzzle the night
Washcloths winked in wind
Sun stunned the maple and doe
Clouds descend, flags, poles
Mr. Walking Stick
Is missing
From his rounds
The streets have tipped
Him into a portal
His stick vanished
At a lightning strike
His cheerful monologues
Wiped from his script
His quick interactions
Between leg and
Swing
Gone poof
Now bounding instead
From roof to roof
Was old and dapper
Sprung from dusty maps and treasure
The crows called as if clever
The hands, swollen-worn, deformed, let out the gun crack clap
And the crows swarmed his face (forlorn)
Their wings, mad brushes, returned his features to their beaming youth
And he spit out, for the new polish by tooth
The rain dripped from his face
Lightning flashed
But it just wasn’t Ernest
He did the same nervous twitch
When he was asked to close the curtain
But Ernest it still wasn’t
In fact it was
The furthest from Ernest he’d gotten
When all the drama had scattered
He’d talk ĺong
Into the gramophone
Knowing that wasn’t
Its operation
It was Ernest
But not
The right situation
Flavours fizzed upon the tongue
Oozed and popped, then soured and swum
Inside the cheeks the gelatinous gum
Got stuck and stung
Unable to dislodge his face purpled and swelled
Nostrils working double time
Releasing then a smoking slime
He was felled on the company’s dime
The rabbit’s foot
They put in the stew
The horseshoe
Was on a horse
The four leaf clover
Nibbled down
To three
The operation was
Successful
An angel dancing
On a
Pinhead
The gravestone
Labelled
Best before
A spun bottle
At the slumber party
The undertaker tardy
The monk, drunk
On swirling elixir
Observes the firs by moonlight
The wind lifts their
Scent
To the casement
And soon he’s slumped
Into a
Snore
The peas appeased the diplomats and peace broke out.
The phantom limb
Earned in the grinder
Floaty, itchy reminder
Stomped on at films
Of panic and horror
Quick for the door
Haunting behind the wainscotting
Caught in a cupboard
Already gone
Toward the light
Before Jim.