It’s why you can’t be captain, your bad bits keep leaking out.

1.

I call him the Imposter, his horse looks just like mine.

That’s your hoss Buster and if you ain’t been in the saddle, then where in tarnation has you been?

I comes and goes, other actors take the stage.

            Where goes it?

Gathering. It looks for another. Sits on the moon sometimes, or swims

To deep ocean’s dark bottom

            Well I’ll be

Bird shapes in the branches, quick call, come go, kiss kiss, toodleloo. Wings go up and down.

Tailfeathers.

            It keeps talking

It’s my ride, he’s rash

            Saddlesore

I suppose you could call it that. I call him the Lobster, he snaps.

            I might too if I were being boiled alive.

Sitting on the step sometimes, trying to remember how to dream,

With the woodpigeons drowsily waiting in the garden, while blackbird sings.

And the wren whips through the leaves of the ivy

Out and in, swift eye, peering through the ivy

Then into the air, is gone.

            It’s a sad song.

It’s written in stone, wrought in wreaves, graven and goodgiven, not the soot and smut you’d stand it for. Whitens in mist, or when clouds cloak it.

            Don’t darken it.

Night comes.

2.

            Speak plain mister

It’s speech? It smells right? It’s funny, I felt it so. It froths. You deem it amiss?

It turns that way, over the pink muscle

of the tongue. Eye it

Its markings, machine-made,

It spins.

            That’s gun talk

I took off, I’d gone inside, to the pale gums of[L1]  it, in the grinders

where it gets it, how it falls out

in the breath.

            It’s all chewy

I grafted it myself

            I done my part

You played your part I spun my art and out of earth picked poetry

            Pah! Paltry, my Poppy

            could pipe better/

Pipe down, I gust it, my facts were misconstrued. I hatched it

from the start, a great yolk, all of it, a wheeze, a lark, a ruse.

A starling, a stork and a mistral thrush, a wren, a seabird too

            Say, an albatross

Morbid destiny, the error won’t be obviated. It hangs as physical weight and the heart

has to work harder. It drags downwards, it slows the step, it palsies the hand.

            So you can’t shoot straight>

Sin started it

            That’s serendipitous

It sounded sweet?

            Like cotton candy

Sweeten it! I’ll sugar everything. If you hadn’t frightened a face on me I’d have none. Just a mutter among many moaning. You plucked me.

            You was suspicious looking.

The cats called it. I was whistling Dixie, you saw it, drinking my milk

straight out the bottle

            Sure as Dixie’s Daisy

And a slug of whatever he’s having, that’s the spirit. I’ll slurp it, a soupcon, no, scratch it,

a six-shooter, something I can blow the smoke off of.

            Sure thing Smokey

A sure thing’s a fine thing Dusty, and you can salt your fries with that.

            Sure as Tacos Tuesday.

Totally. It’s a tease. My time was running out. I totalled it, trashed it and traded it in.

            Timeshares are risky business partner

Don’t I know it, it twists

            You can’t trust it

It tricks

            It turns on you

It’s terrible. I’m torn. My pieces everywhere.

            You’re shorn

My fleece is everywhere,

            You’re furless

I’m forlorn.

3.

            What will they call us?

Dialogue of the Soul with an Uncertain American Dimension.

            Of uncertain age

And curious Destiny. Grant it, we two

            Together

Bless it.

            Grant Good’s Grace

Grave it

            It was here written-

And shall it be

            Choose it

I choose it

            A damn fine double act.

Doubtless, I deem it so

            And believe it often

Dream it when I sleep at night

            And waking keep touching it

It wants it

            It’s Totem Truth

Tell it

            It gallops the wide prairie, it cries freedom, wild wind, in her hair.

Taste it

            It’s salty

I seeded it myself.

            It seemed it

Save it

            A toast to your good health-

I need it

            Heartache?

Heard it?

            Each time of hearing my own heart rends anew.

I lost it

            Lately?

Longly.

            Lonely?

Only

            O that I could-

Calm it, I couldn’t keep it, cool it, it simmers by itself.

4.

I’m Ham Spam

            I’m Hawaii Spam with Pineapple Pieces

Aloha Hawaii Spam

            Hullo there Ham Spam

Let’s spickle candidly

            True, we’re tinned that’s the nub of it, the meat is all inside

Uncan me!

            Could we?

Our virtue’s all within.

5.

            I’ve unstitched him. His meat is all without

You’ve nobbled me. I’ve nubbed it. My innards are out, I’m opened, but strangely see

The true nature of all things, it spreads before me

            You’re lunchmeat.

I’m pink but I’m curious. It’s recursive and wafts in waves. It’s sliced in stacks see it?

            (he speaks profound) It’s piecemeal, can it be stuck together?

In kind, I think, it’s complicated. Each lozenge can be elongated. They’re tongue-like

            Poke it out, unfurl it

It has a certain grandeur when it’s folded

            It’s Alpine

It has its high points

            It peaks and troughs it’s true. Is it terminal?

We’re numbered in days, calendars, we tear off the pages, till it tells one day’s December

            It darkens

We depart.

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