1.
Symbology was his overgarment on that ghost-bosomed summer night. She tugged him gently beneath a hieroglyphic moon. “Come down from the Parthenon frieze,” she cooed. He awoke drenched in Sappho oil, dropped objective correlatives in the snow. Candle spurts and rosehips—a tawdry bedroom. How do you say “interstitial” in German? A sledgehammer is a good example. His brain made whimpering sounds, polished bannisters in the dark—and still, aesthetics prevailed. The psychiatric panel requisitioned new floodlights. “Dream anything differently,” said the mayor of Plastic Babylon, where already the marketplace seemed less than theoretical. We tried to establish eminent domain, knowing that, in the struggle for individualism, confetti is an option. But it was clear that our fashionable days were coming to an end.
2.
Prussian girl-glossing involves chiffon—don’t ask me how. Also, don’t wake the shooting gallery. Every vicar knows that thigh verbs lolly-fizzle, while stirrups divulge. Vexed colloquialisms. Popular broadheads. We dined on capon and schadenfreude. “That’s Bubby’s pogo stick,” said the freckle-faced juror. Who’s ready for a naked centrifuge? He came to amidst fixities of cross-varnish. How’s the old kaboodle? Pale, very full of grease. Radical dumbwaiters, nostalgic for hand-cranking, communicate telepathically. I was waylaid by a troupe of vertical axis pole-dancers en route to someplace else, someplace more fraternal, less chafed. Don’t tell me you still don’t understand! I want to ride the velvet spiral and untie gray knots. I want to ask French questions and watch bluebells fall from mirrors. Nuances clot in my mouth. The capon is meant to be ironical.
3.
Were you thankful when the silver birds turned translucent? Did we make obtuse catcalls on love’s fractal shore? It’s time to install a lexicon for soliloquizing. Let each whiplashed heart find its anaphora. Let each true poet read by the light of something “glimpsed recently”—for who among us can enumerate the caramelized slip-knots of emotion? Father always shrugged in a different language. Our little town was known for its stampedes. I had a catch-phrase: “Look for me in the candy gutter,” but it never caught on. Some called me “neo-classical,” others, a “Lazarus-in-patent leather,“ others still, “a ward of the state.” One thing I knew: a secret kiss lasts a lifetime. Also, this silhouette won’t pay the bills.
4.
Who’ll vouch for this butter? Am I hormone-compliant? What tastes like sky-backlash? Sharpshooters drop “My Lai poppers” in the vestibule, pardon forgivable glue-sniffers. Titular. Noun-share. Literal winces. Volunteer linchpins visually gulp contracts, knowing Truth’s onerous. Well, graze my calypso! “Frictionless” how? Bathtub Handel ricochets milky hoopla and recidivist kaputs, over-and-out. She’s a practicing Methodist is all I know! Quit the birddog business. Collect apparitional sequins, melancholic déjà vu. To thine own self be skewed. Bubble pulled dilation wax. Cantilevered wad tumult. Root antipathy, leper-sleeved. Pitch white like putty under orders, and don’t be a dog-snorer. Wake me twice like an old expression. It’s true what they spray: your voice sounds different in print.
5.
Your voice sounds different in print. Are those pitchforks flippant? This room appears nearly empty—and the wrong color, too, albeit one possessing “incredible clarity,” as the Neo-Platonists like to say. Everywhere you sense a substitution of feeling for belief. The air quivers with yellow scarves and the tinkling of similar endings. Just ask the man in the dark suit, standing open-mouthed above a harmonium. Clearly, his evanescence is fully automated. He reeks of doppelgangers, and his noir fuse sneers resume-chits. “Stop demanding money to watch you sleep,” he chides. But you’ve already jazzed your ditto-hunch. Besides, nothing peripheral out-gavels a lush string accompaniment, even if it’s factory-sealed. You can smack-dab that notion with your stumpy luger.
6.
Sleepover nimbus. Vibrato in cashmere. Slur verbatim sock-hop tourniquet. Going to stutter-bomb the tenderloin, confer tertiary handcuff cream. “Ad hoc,” she said. Words cracked open, pheromone-secreting clubhouse. Arrest bondage chocolate. Prerecorded fall guy, gooey anti-Christ escapes prism. I took a course in Chemical Linguistics—suggest you do the same, spiny human. Don’t be so anal-inventive. Simulated cockpit bullion, sticker price tremens notwithstanding. Not a dry iamb in the house. Call it “lilac fatalism” or call it “pirate jelly”—either way, it’s plum subtraction. Shall we roger that? Do I hear a second? Your simulacra left a stain, by the way. Sorry. I smell “substitutive systems,” you old spin-doctor you, and so I must exit, pursued by a hair. If you get lonely, look for me in the candy gutter.
7.
Backseat-amok on point. Curious dints. Was she polyglot? Blue toads divulged, and a fellow would harness milkshakes. Unrelenting B-movie signature-husk: treble bore. Detonate frenzies. Less travelled prom-flavored compromise, silently stalking. Guess we’re due for a standstill. Meanwhile, Nigel succumbed to pew dilation because some fool jiggled the touché-switch. Let’s face it: teeth chattering with “social undecidability” wet no fiscal whistles. That’s Flaubert for you! He slept through the hole thing. Now I detect signals from the thorny precipice, oozing tithe-glitter and squeegee remorse. Why can’t you tell her the page is upside down? That “lyrical I” ain’t nothin’ but a pronoun, promise-crammed–a two-stepping preemie in the ever-pixilated dark, with lack-of-plenum and a bad case of itch-by-proxy. Just ask my allergist if you don’t believe me.
8.
Puppet band, beset with pendulum-cramps. Gratuitous puff. Monkey barrel squint-grease (pie latent) effervesces Mom’s gesundheit. Dry sod and dry chaff. Vile squirt miscarriage. Mouthpiece-swallowed milk prong breeds lullaby verdict. Expedite the lulu! Corn-feed that nostrum! Drizzling gestalts moisten her agenda—and yet cavalier municipal herbologists muzzle acronyms. Always remember–yellow pimpernel’s untoothed. Someone gave Giuseppe the car keys, and now behaviorism’s refuted. Pardon my derailment. Are those boudoir mints? She only loved me a posteriori, as befitting my perpetuity and latex pinafore. Nonetheless, my acceptance speech went off without a dry eye in the ouch.
9.
Lose good. Seize her. Eye blink silo. Espouse his sin, eh? Pillage. Throw keys. Shrill knot’s seedy droppings—mere blue “crotch-biz” could still cup. Fifth row. Sigh piddle course, dust-stink adhere. Boo flop. Myth pout a harmed douse. Beer between. Huh would sand flow, then take? The spark nest, Steve! Fling of the weary. Sieve this. Far nest. Fella breaks new flask. Whiff hair whiz. Dumbest flake. The lonely mother mound. The creep-shove. Measly gin and ground beefsteak. Ma should love me–darkened sheep! Smut-eye got prom dresses. Screwed deep–and files due! Show me, four-eyes! Deep-end style’s too slow! Restore my sleep.
10.
Walleye Tom wears see-through. The slumber weighs out. Darts or doves? Eating your desperate muffins. Who fakes a farthing? Suds dismay. And rubber-sleeved “Plath dolls” report irate windchimes. Two tots deny eleven. Wines can soften “business.” Old confections rimmed Fran’s savory faire. Compare dumb rhymes. Decline thigh-dancer’s play. Your cage’s door’s unhinged. Smut-eye burns all! Strum her trill knot. Trade four screws. No messin’ with cat hairs. Bow lowest. Bore gall-breathed hags. Now pawns dress in frizzed suede. Bending intern will dine on limes. Alto tests show wrong jazz when all give planned sighs. Balmy “kabong!” sieves this sand, misgives night duty.