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10-Tangerine Sun

Tangerine Sun For André Breton

High upon a cloud that bobs with drones in its hair

a myopic cow visits futuristic castles and museums,

there to entertain the hysterical griffins and hydras

while I in my emerald cape slink down a manhole

into a molten-rock river, then an ocean of mercury.

Unraveling diversely, a perpetual pterodactyl prays

for the resurrection and ascension of slain gorillas.

Whoever ignores Iceland will probe a steep chasm

that’s booby-trapped, set for the ultimate sacrifice.

Admittedly the trains and planes and automobiles

you contact on the road to Calais should be ridden

with cheer, as orioles soar like Icarus, never to fail.

Anesthetized, I’m comforted by songs in my head

and find merriment therein despite all of the decay.

Riding on the back of an antelope you’d encounter 

a tangible thought driven into you like a rusty nail.

Lacking any inspiration does solitude invade, like

daisies in a frozen field buried by layers of red ice.

Hail the light strung along a clothesline some poet

dragged through a Sahara of woe and beyond luck.

Maybe doesn’t compute because of acid rain stuck

between this idea and the middle tooth of a reptile.

Mandarin sunset, sliced finger and a managed soul 

like yesterday’s breakfast are today almost pristine.

So now cypress trees and cisterns go wandering off,

which you take for granted but only if love is likely.

Raspberry dessert, I revel in your manifest anarchy.

Rough-hewn breath instant as unearthed arrows you

like a black dove hover over my heart, injecting me

with penicillin, and banana scent that’s oh so sweet.

A plethora of doubt intrudes, muscular and bullying

whenever I yawn, bored to tears yet worrying about

the apocalypse falling on my head as scorched ash.

Never mind says the trollop scouring craven streets

where sacrilege and alms greet pilgrims to nirvana.

It’s said in scriptures do unto others what you want.

I wrote that a few days ago while bathing beneath

a purple sky. Rapidly erased from memory parades

a quorum of senators wrapped in gold tunics, to be

saluted by the jackals devout in belief that faith aids

not reverse osmosis, nor includes concrete elements.

Thomas Piekarski

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