Under the Gun
When this sentence should speak for itself‚
it does the way it does
everything: more or less.
FACTORY: We make the same moves on each other.
DALLAS: Get me the monkey.
ORANGUTAN: I prefer: ‘person of the forest’
or else ‘reference point.’
The camping party entered
not only the entrances.
Somebody took the cake.
J. PUCKLE: Good thing it wasn’t God.
GOD: I wouldn’t have given it back.
THE LITTLE BASSOON: I want to experience the unfinished works
of Paul Valéry‚
the way life unfinishes like a ghost‚
all over your face.
• • •
Everything’s First Time
Of course you can have
whichever you prefer.
CALIFORNIA: The deer are both hatless and nude.
LA ROSA: I want an Irish birthday.
BASKET OF PUPPIES: What’s in your basket?
BASKET OF FISH: I am not sentient.
At the cultural bureau‚ they’ve detected
that the bulls are all insolent and beautiful.
Sebastian usually rides through in the morning.
HIM: I will ride you to San Sebastian.
THE SUN: I will be a red nickel.
LOCAL FLORA: The flower-eating horses will eat us.
I would just like to say
the same thing again sometimes forever.
• • •
Pomp & Circumstance
In the midst of all this hubbub over God’s bisexuality‚
the wedding DJ tried to kill himself.
HETERONORMATIVE MALE #1: I’d have sex with God.
SARTRE: I’d let him fuck my tits.
HETERONORMATIVE MALE #2: I’m more of a Joan Crawford kind of guy.
JOAN CRAWFORD: Every film should have a bathtub scene.
Simplicity isn’t necessarily the answer
to the great and hypothetical question of
how to stage a naked-lady-gun-show.
BUSBY BERKELEY: I want the dancers to be limp.
BUSBY BERKELEY: Invisible men will carry them.
BUSBY BERKELEY: When they are shot from the cannons
we must see where they land‚
then where they live‚ and the rest of their lives.
• • •
Get Out
In Montreal and indoors
Montreal is overcome with lateness.
CARMINA: Step lively and then to the left.
TRENT: Stand still completely for once.
DOLLHOUSE: Sometimes you can only move your eyebrows.
PEOPLE DRESSED AS HOUSES: Windows are not always not doors.
There is a high-pitched noise in the taquería
that makes it difficult intermittently
to think of how we’ve made a Québec of ourselves.
BIRD ISLAND: That’s not Québec.
ISLAND HOUSE: That is not the sea-place
they saw there.
QUÉBEC: I have a few more in me.
One has been led off out of habit.
One wonders where one should’ve gone.
• • •
Lots of Birds and Lots of Mammals
If something’s kind of sort of
something else‚ send it out.
DESSIRE: I will tell you if it’s good
LADY: I’m a magician or what I have turned into.
THE POOR: There is a second sort of life.
IMMIGRATION: As if you could remember
the first time you saw a car
in a mirrored window.
Saints should drive blue cars
and stop at every light.
MICHAEL: I will wear my boots and khakis.
EAGLES: We are always looking for the other eagles.
EAGLES: There you are. Don’t ever leave me again.
I’m tired of thinking
about the droves.