Raw Poem Post

11/13/05 1:13 AM

Untitled Prose Poem 10

A nun walks into a bar with a pair of komodo dragons on big, dog leashes. The dragons seem like a great safeguard from all of the college football fans in their drunken Ouija board circles. The dragons seem like they could talk if they didn’t have so many teeth. The dragons seem like, if they came in stainless steel, they could be used to unite all of the elements in the room. The nun orders shrimp and shiitake kabobs with chutney mayonnaise and roasted pistachio boysenberry muffins. Before she lets the dragons eat, she salts and peppers the meal vigorously. The dragon on the left whispers to the nun, and she demands a half-pound chunk of aged asiago. The dragon on the right whispers to the nun, and she demands a plate of smoked turkey with couscous pilaf. This goes on for some time before the nun realizes that the bartender just keeps handing her peanuts, martini olives, and pickled pig’s feet. The dragons don’t seem to mind. But it has been shown throughout the centuries that the skin communicates subtleties that the tongue cannot decode. This is why the nun strokes them so. This is why I am no longer allowed to tend bar.

Raw Poem Post

Mjoll

Mjoll is a heroin addict who conceals her addiction from her husband.
Mjoll moves to a different town without contacting his creditors.
Mjoll can haul two sacks of grain over the hill.
Mjoll didn’t get any Christmas presents this year.

Doctor Mjoll steals jewelry from his stepbrother.
Mjoll is napping now and won’t be able to play.
Mjoll’s helmet is on display at the Museum of Nocturnal Soldiers.
Mjoll spends two or three weeks a year living in a houseboat.

Mjoll can’t do his own taxes.
Mjoll challenges some raccoons to a foot race.
Look how Mjoll has worn out his front paws.
Mjoll insists on knowing the name of the captain of this ship.

Mjoll, won’t you just try one bite of the goulash?
Mjoll often shares his thoughts with the audience in terse monologues.
Mjoll, the city, is named after Mjoll, the ship, that carried
Mjoll, the soldier, to his final resting place.

Mjoll will return from Singapore within the hour.
Mjoll, in this hand-colored etching, appears to frown at himself.
Mjoll’s hands thundered through the iron-braced door.
Mjoll tells me where my mistakes are and asks if I would like to try again.

Mjoll, hungry as he was, entered the city and devoured everyone he met.
Mjoll outlived Shakespeare, however.
Mjoll begged and pleaded until the gardener let him back in.
Dear Mjoll, money, in this case, can do anything it wants.

Mjoll writes about time-travel.
Mjoll was like a vine planted in the cracks of a parking lot.
Mjoll made a bronze lion’s skull and mounted it on his staff.
As Mjoll veered the truck onto the sidewalk, he saw it was Mjoll he was going to hit

Suppose Mjoll wants to serve a rack of parrots for supper.
If Mjoll is tethered to a fencepost, he will strangle himself trying to get free.
Mjoll can no longer fit into her favorite pair of jeans.
Old man Mjoll will pay us to shovel his sidewalk.

Mjoll, indeed, is put together like a dream, and Mjoll’s treasure is a dangerous mirage.
Mjoll held his hand out to you, why did you not bite it and run?
I, Mjoll, hereby testify that these facts are true to the best of my knowledge.
Mjoll has his own paper route.

Mjoll wonders how long the cephalopods will take to get back to the water.
Mjoll ascends from a frost-thickened tree.
Mjoll’s sensors, as usual, have to be set back to zeroes.
Mjoll has turned his eyes upward. This is what the moonbeams command.