Do you travel by arrangement?
Tip your hat at the perfectly shod?
Here is the father you will soon plead to kill
Instrumental eyeglasses
A turn for the worst and the possible
Trappings, goose droppings, matchbooks, scotch
and plain old water. Baited legs, a premature
announcement in the papers, immature swing
of an arm. A father who hates with all the cash,
vernacular, and culpability in the world
Guilt runs faster than delight
He is the father who begs both pardon and question
Who will rarely chat to a tennis player eating lamb chops
Who knows about people he has never met
and those you have never heard of
You are the heel, sole, and tricksy step of the playmate
You are the mother’s frillies and highballs
You are the needless to say
The two hour wait at a bus stop with a cigar,
newspaper, some wasted perambulation
Interest always vested, suited, mono
Do you travel by arrangement?
Keep a European train schedule on your desk?
Did she file them just a smidgeon too short?
Why grip the reins when you are not moving?
Does the band always play on?
Did you even enter the Magic Isle?
Maybe you hold plans for later…
To call a cop, a doctor, help the elderly cross the street
Love your stirring hound like a child, or a goat, a cheese,
a log, an ice-box, a goal to get even
Huh huh huh, huh huh huh
Is your name well yes?
So how would you do it, Mrs. Cunningham?
How in the world would you do it?
Everything important fits about the neck
Mrs. Cunningham, we are both indecent
With what manner shall we proceed?
Share a nip of sleep?
Shake the pearls? Dust off those glad rags?
Do we have cold feet to defrost?
A horse to debug?
A flower to smell from Mars?
I am the car pulling up. I am the hostage situation,
the sound seeping from your neighbor’s headphones
Silk shadows dressing by the table, Ray’s Danbury Diner
Help me, Mrs. Cunningham! Help me!
Are you a smoocher or are you simply educated?
How many more times can you change your name,
and then make-believe we do not notice
how your personality is as crooked as ever?
Float to the ground like the lindy to cement
The richer you are, the smaller the teacup you drink from
I am your eyes now
There is undulation, a split of seemliness
The soothingness of paint
Allow someone else to crawl beneath the merry-go-round
Mrs. Cunningham, the arrow points in only one direction only
Mrs. Cunningham, draw yourself to here
This is the father of all nighttime
The sun remains a slut
“Contamination” first appeared in Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts.