Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Robert Verdon, #332, The Divine Farce



in deep miniature gardens

with willowy vertical solar farms

and lenticular basements of tasty mildew




we gobble a nacre smörgåsbord from the public snow schools of yesteryear,

full fadom five; warts gainful and nimble busybodies on a tightrope stretched

across the lacuna between Black Mountain and Mt Ainslie




above the coy felicity of Canberra,

fortune ladling maize skirts, popcorn trees and terrapin cushions

devious beanies mesmerising the purple sage




upon a stage of tambourines and cranberries,

snare drums and wire brushes and ancient recordings of Gene Krupa

playing vibraphone, mango strings and banjo




(as a child in the primary school library

I looked up Aboriginal place name meanings

like ‛Hair Growing Out of Ears’, ‛Big Bum’, and ‛Fuck Off, Gubba’)




dimwitted selvedge on a bed of twice-baked celery

snapping bridges

nibbling gnarled necks of crimson rice-paper




paper-and-comb high streets

daft badgers

Toscanini dances on a perpendicular sunbeam!




tiny and trim as a squelch button

in those lost penny-farthing summers

when we ate angler fish paté




or fish angler paté, with Jeremy Bentham, who stuffed himself,

excuses excuses in short wave Morse and a dry cummerbund

winning acres of saveloy orchard




dodgy phoenixes lick

at Ozymandias’s boot-heels

hot foot to paradise




penitents with their eyes sewed up with wire

climbing up Mt Purgatory

terrified of heights




ghastly parsley farces

green is good for you

a sunburst through gold leaf




jackets in their potatoes

wry silences

wavy machine-guns




melted ribbons in mousy hair

Acacia jibberdingensis flowering

velvet buffaloes stampeding over the high Patagonian coccyx




stamping furtively through starling rails,

high upon a stolen gale,

prizing mud, red from the jail




elbowing dribble from its tail,

he slept in jackboots with a whale,

entered Christmas empty




dinner-jacketed clouds descend

evening gowns at high tide

swords at twenty paces; at court,




unwashed varlets fester manfully in lacquer

spring aldrig efter spårvagnar

steer clear of Spanish lace




Ogden of Nashville, Tennessee

speech-impedimented and free

squinted sucked and sank at sea




gnash your razors grind your grains

sun will never shine in this lair, or roses

bloom or blow away round this fulsome cottage door.

3 comments:

  1. wow -- that is a lot of territory!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ta — it was a torrent of verbal diarrhoea that erupted just as I despaired of being able to come up with anything yesterday! :)

    ReplyDelete

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