The
Origin of Cigars
On the morning after the lunar eclipse,
she awoke with a funny feeling,
massaged her belly with hurricane drops,
rubbed barbeque sauce on her eyelids,
donned a necklace of alligator bones
and walked down to the Caribbee
where, asquat in a spice canoe,
she gave birth to a green banana.
"Not mine!" growled her husband,
pitching the new baby overboard
into the path of a barracuda,
who seized it like bait
just as lightning's alchemical zippo
ignited the infant's nib.
Transformed into a pufferfish,
the 'cuda was soon upstaging cookfires
as it smoke-ringed past the strand
in luxurious loopy-doops,
languid, masculine,
respiring like some kind of don
-- waiting for a cognac rain.
Full Tilt
The phantom arrived in a neon speedboat
ferrying a cargo
of coconuts and diamonds.
*
From the veranda of the malaria hotel
we saw it coming:
a kabuki magazine published by a hurricane.
*
Its clown-head prow sawed the surf in half
causing Crayola buddhas to run
over the hill with sacks of tadpoles on
their backs.
*
A fat old tropical radio
interrupted the news to announce
that it was now king of the waterbugs.
*
Watching it turn wine into mink milk,
bedsheets into sandwiches of snow,
we imagined it must be a wind-up toy
designed by a mad scientist
to brighten the long frown of time.
*
But ...
in the end
it was the moon.
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