When she awoke in the same story, he was a small and crumpled sideman. With a horse and two children. The scene was set in the gallery on Starr Street. A security guard near the immensely delicate trees. Some dripping a kind of glue, if you look very closely. And the dirt side roads that lead to the candy blue country houses. I’m glad I am away from home. Where I would open old screens and put books in my cart. Pushing through in hope for a snowfall. How is there time? These buildings have so much detail. There is snow falling now. The room smells like popped ice. I can see a tiny future in front of me. I can imagine a sun in timelapse, rolling over the model place. Even in the little corners, such detail: a couple discarded, broken fruitrinds.
Parachutes to Reality
No one could get the time right. Not then, not now, not with the official birth certificate, nor without. This complicated the remainder of life, immensely.
Gone were the days of cross-sectional analysis, amethyst mountain zoos, and railway scarecrow pockets. Shirley’s birth was astrologically aligned with two notable figures, the business mogul, Richard California Almonds, and the notorious outlaw, Leatherface Mush. The particular year was notable for one thing and one thing only: It was the year real estate mogul Harry Deal jumped out of a plane, and his parachute didn’t open.
Mr. Deal came from a long line of parachute manufacturers, namely the well-reputed company Destiny Glaze, a company that emerged after lawsuits filed against Reliant (pronounced Rel-eee-auhnt), the company that killed Mr. Deal. They had lived under King Decadahedron in the Blatvatskian Alps, where a great grandfather, Earl of Wingtipped Shoes, was inventor for the Royal Family—the Royal Family that became wealthy off profits from the tiny swords that go into finger sandwiches. It was all of a piece, in a way, when one considers that the luck of the stars changes not with the weep of birth’s celestial violins, but with the freshness of the medical gloves one lands in when they plunge from a deep, dark, human center.
**OUT NOW** ML 003 - DUCK, SUCCOR poems and odds & ends by hans f. wagner
Exhumed Stars
Alfred Hitchcock was found with
Houdini’s stomach
Marilyn Monroe was found
in a perfume of whitecaps
Bela Lugosi was found with
the bends
Kobe Bryant was found with
a way back in
Geronimo was found with
a maple leaf on a chain
Carl Sagan was found with
new findings
Borges was found with
Wet Naps
Philip Lamantia was found with
spiral shoes
Billy the Kid was found with
an ultralight backpacking tent
Thomas Jefferson was found with
Please Kill Me
Carl Linnaeus was found
inside a snowman
Eric Dolphy was not found
Amelia Earhart was found
trying to write poetry.
The Corner of the House Too High in the Sky
Shattered onion doesn’t really happen, but that could describe the sun. The jar on the hill is lifted and replaced with a recording device. In the mulch, a bug. We stared at it while talking, then realized it was made of rubber.
For all the thoughts the morning hours contain, coffee drowns me in the real trick. Following the thought to a smooth curved cream ledge, I can throw a knee up and slide down more slowly. From there it’s a matter of raising a finger. Staying squat in the tallgrass, I give up, rise, signal everything to come out.
The situation the highway passes was different. This highway was installed by a museum. Lights climb the staged trees. Big transparent ice falls. Swallows before bedtime, inducing the crystal sleep. Winds seem to squander figures against the sky. A detached bread raises, and re-attaches between plate and mouth. Just beside it, the knife results not to be believed.
I sat on a hill and got progressively more clear. I confronted myself with the curtness of a liquid nitrogen frozen racquetball. Thrown into the canyon of painted hands. Shattered, every ledge here lived, now untouchable. I want to live where it snows against great peach bags.
What am I doing here, or over here, or wherever you find me when I get buried in time? I’m thinking of a plant that starts to speak, not metaphorically but actually. I am tired. That doesn’t mean I want to die. I wanted to die before but kept waking up. This isn’t a story anymore. It is what really happens.
Elvis
without a microphone
looks much like anyone else,
except sideburned.
