Titular Head of the Bread Basket

the otter cannot see the other otter approaching under the ice

at night or the eel

against the eel colored blind spot on the spine of the culvert

destined in a fable

to reappear as a non-threatening penguin with airs of entitlement

and bleeding knee

an oink meant as a presentiment to the commission of the criminal

act of guffawing

at the visible boiling point in his education, buffed out by a gear in

a murder addition sign

and too well shaved for an emissary of the razors hailing on D.C.

take five shaved men

on a bandstand playing celebration to the chief, flying stormbound

against the comic rage

of Sarah McLaughriot in a perfectly white awning, winter pigeon

mannequins blown out

from their winter coats, twanged at by ice mosquitoes in toques



"There and then you'll be able to trial run your elephant fart routine

see if to do the unrated cut is acceptable

or you might get your share of ornaments removed from your senate seat

by swift downward pressure on the truth

the price an elected official can expect to pay off this national daisy chain.”



"Come, come, my fire engine, my end of the Chinese drill, no raccoons now.

What was the devil?

You wouldn't have sat in the real devil’s lap at the mall on end of sale days.”



"I had no eels with which to ram back your otter attack.” Tebald Greengill

Alcoa researcher had occasion to remark

”You are the only proof of your serpent charming license.”

See what your having friends has done?

“No donuts but you applied for a proving ground permit. By their thirst methods."

He was as thirsty as the day he was meant to have been born.



To be a paisley sacrifice, sister this and love thy that, all atheist biblical prating

and a tobacco pony reined to it.

The holders of the PO Box keys wherein the bombs were maintained at room temp

had made three milkshakes before noon of the day.

the mitigating circumstances drank too much sake in the sushi bar the night before

offending the none too goat friendly Panda keeper.

Would a pen full of lonely Panda and otter suspend convention?

You might if you had seen her.

The sight of her azure eyeshadow now brought it all back to him -

how he had coveted her catalog duds

and treasured the time she let him stroke her automatic elephant blunderbuss



whenever in the pen he thinks of his maximum penalty

he becomes sentimental

that shining moment he took the stage to present her to her party

and found the public attentive to her gun rack

regards it still as a present from the powers that fly in first that he himself was given

this singular honor, after he’d found the otters

had had another engagement and canceled with only a couple hours notice

She was wearing a dated dress he removed

with the crowd’s eyes as he entered her ahead of them.



"If," said Mr. De Volyooshun to a Gnome, "the deed to this hammered lid

was in fact the infamous overlook

it was only infamous in the sense that what is famous is fleeting

and what fleets fleets from a half steeped brain.

Its infamy is not in the Dillinger concealed in the wonder bra

but in how that fellow Marceau

was hardly a hymen.” The music of the death of pain got through.

And she looked surprisingly like an otter

in foam rubber runner up suit. An Oversight judges everywhere

will one day pay for.

The Sleep of the Just (Barely)

Now all the martyrs have been vanquished
who can we trust to translate a safe lunch
from the Mandarin? Is it a crazy ass chicken
scratch menu? Or an exquisite chronicle
of an ancient heartbreak? Is that even real
Amerikan Chinese? Where are all the funny
fuck ups that make the fire containable?

No one killed for justice in days. And yet
there is a school, the blackout windows
watch you waiting for a bus each morning.
Nature’s wondrous dance of watcher and bus
passenger freezing at the stop. The lateness
of conveyance again, value added continuity.
Muy Bueno. The lunge of the universe sings.

He gave himself an Oscar for his penultimate
orgasm but his speech exceeded the time limit.
The looming danger of too many essential people
to thank. Befriended by the very friendly deities
all acting together like a battery life. O, black
and uncharted errata, how convenient that you
can’t get anywhere from here.

The lurch forward of the stopping threw
the bodies back like a motorcade headshot.
Loud was the noise that was heard and aimed
the gazes of observers focusing on a pigeon
fight visible beyond the light-up destination
sign. These were among the inconsistencies
that made it a good day, but not in court.

Through the cyclone he lost none of his fat,
having studied the resiliency of the shithead.
He practiced imitating contracting stars, without
the concomitant fairytale emissions. Nothing of her
influence survived his scoliosis of the funnies.
That once self-described glib tongue already grafted
to a bone in the blistering end of the garden.


So how, again, was a martyr constructed?
It had to be according to some Chinese puzzle
where you line up the borrowed warheads. Not
without some help from the Self Inflicted Auto Dealers
Group. They use their children to annihilate your soul.
So says the broken cross to the shattered crucible
of Milwaukee’s Best, ignoring the irony.

Close your eyes. Visualize yourself on a beach
attempting to achieve an erection with the help
of only a single oyster cracker. You do not
feel salt in the breeze. You have no sense
but can say the words, “Remote” and “Safety”
into an empty chamber. You need more booyah
from your lack of prowess.

Let the inconsequence, of which that vast expanse
before your stitched lids is largely a familiar mower
path, bathe you gently in scalding tomato soup.
A bus-like military vehicle runs over you hourly.
Try to count backwards from one.
Pretend that a beautiful woman
can see you breathing.