Shift Now, Said Freud
[Low world: demon organ, rude kazoos.]
Luminous riders, cold and unimaginable,
hanging always just out of sight . . .
These are secrets? Never too early, were you?
[Weird bottles backlit w/ sprigs of parsley]
. . . abrasive specters illuminated by the ritual
blazes of inner thigh prophecies, the lashes
and cuts of mortal catharsis . . .
Listen, I was just kidding. We'll
countdown the creation, okay?
[The signs heft, itself a pseudonym.]
. . . sleek as a ghost Pontiac, tricked out
with vague codes conceiling unauthorized
comic treachery . . .
You know, not many lick juniper in the faded
generation. Everybody buys a different crown nowdays.
[Mediocre joke lines, sort of a Pentacles qua rallying-point.]
. . . the ringleaders exposed in bourbon shadows,
chronically paralyzed flotsam bisecting a junked axis . . .
Don't cry. There's wine in the trunk.
[Jeers, winces. The ushers surround the Volkswagen.]
. . . adversarial words, mushroom-shaped
mysteries engineered by shivering academics
clutching steep pillars representing . . .
Him? Long of will and days late.
Drank the fragments, including the siren.
[Spokesman for underground vehicles.]
. . . grave-mound angels, a naked countersign
triggering prolonged interdictions . . .
Everybody rolls the stone. Remember -
feet first, sweep, crackle, scrape.
[Cherished strangers rally about the window-glass.]
. . . barricades blossom, defying the rumble
of arrogant circumstance, ratios stretched
into a thin disguise of outgrown reason.
The stain? Yours, fucker.
I've been to San Diego.
[Gearboxes grind in a weary vein.]
by Michael Puttonen