Nicole Burrows

 

ODE

                    To Kenward Elmslie

         Houdinified

A man's packed in light, the solitary bubblette in the loaf o'ice. Out of context, his threshold, a-taut, is, wow-like, "my brain is the key that sets me free," semiotic. Only one way out and that's thru the mouth-looks like you-know-who will have to pro-wrestle himself to out-navigate the metamorphosis of landscape.

Outskirts, everywhere, effluviate. Droplets coalesce into deserts of fast-moving particles. Too much boom in the woofer obsoletes newness. Minutiate and melee. Reruns, on screens, euphoria serial. Glittering asteroid inches away, or beavers, as mandated by the Discovery Channel, damning the particulars and repeating their patterns.

Tycoons menace the flip-side. Their handshakes, category five, nod with their heads. Their drinks, properly conjured, will enable them to sport, on their heads, the mandatory dress code of lampshades at approximately 11:48 p.m. At 98.9 % Fahrenheit, one of the bosses notices ice, problematically, in what is alleged to be a very dry Martini, and so the event of two contradictory substances forms, together, the necessary circumstance that allows him to-surprise, bon vivant-swallow Houdini. Everyone simultaneously believes it is the same time due to the vicarium that ensues. Varied in their abilities to feel like the man who drank Harry, AKA Ehrich, everyone eats water, solidified in cubes, and experiences the internal gutteral whirlpool that is, like trading places in a locked trunk, verisimilitude. For what's left of the evening, no one is able to, consequentially, rest in the restroom.

One sweats while lying about. The body's control of itself is in its illusion of elements. When in its element, it produces unifuzz, another form of the straitjacket, and, for bubble gum, among other purposes, one righteous set of calcified utensils for chewing, whereas when it's out of it, it's useless-a mouth with a foot that does not fit into it, a frame of reference without allusion, for example, the appendix. The tooth crater, as far as holes go, is, for the escape artist, the orifice of the ozone. And man or organically made, Harry, AKA Ehrich, figure of literal meaning, neither anti-cavity nor anti-gravity, is unisex in not prescribing to the limited potential of hatch-popping "within limits" just because a hole, period of a sentence, supposedly has no sides, nor the half-circles of an ass (convenience of flesh) to hide between.

At 99% Fahrenheit, the man who drank Harry, AKA Ehrich, senses the sting of his pee invert back into his urethra, the likely portal thru which Harry, AKA Ehrich, having been packed so densely in a former paragraph has, as is said in the magic business, poof and vanished. Back at the party, someone speaks of the parable of the turtle someone's turned over in order to watch it magically turn back over and we piss ourselves laughing for being grooved onto the oooohing of the spectacle in lieu o' the spectral. My face in the hand-held mirror, for example, has always been syntactical. The eye, akimbo, is its trick and tricky window.

 

ODE
              to Joseph Caravolo

 

Everyday Life

Pang! A hunger sore in the
mayonnaise,
what the knife did for you will
continue to. What's chewing you  now?
Right thru the hour. O
until one night, a HIC! The
drank snow gone
near bleats soft. Sit between me. My wild
provokes. I'll promise to move the cold
away from the ice if you'll note everything
is tasting           for once
even the egg white. How apart do you want me?
Midnight and lunch. Vive le paradox! You
and you. Were what you are only
                     once
                     THE PEKING DUCK
that flew over
                                                       the Chinese
                                   restaurant!  The breeze
pushing it pushes me. It's me against my
back. Your lawn
                                                   on
                     my hair
follicle
                                   don't I own
that?
                    Sweet infest me! I am
lice. Breathing, smells
                                                   I
                                                   O
                                      why do I
whine when I can burrow and die in your
underpant. Hold on
to your cross-stitch! It's too much
temperature. Pee on
that. Now there's sun on your
head. Hooray IT! You
are that warm. Mud and the stick. Isn't this
logically
tender. What
holds onto a body is held within it. We
O
                                                 really really
are
that                          QUACK! nutshell-
ish.