Friday, February 29, 2008

Trout Mask Replica

I have entered an abomination
Where a mustachioed wizard
Howls a burning hymnal
And stuttered proclamations.
A place where Coltrane and
Miles devolve into wicked
Scythes, oh! slash my ears
With your cacophonous beauty!
This place is a writhing pink; some rooms
Boiling; others, bone clatteringly
Cold, but some part of each room
Lies in the Delta.
My guide is a man dressed
In conifer green, in a coat lined
With fur dyed urine yellow.
Upon his head the bastard child
Of Lincoln and Earp's hats.
He faces me from a distance,
But I am hesitant to heed his
Hand-amplified call.
For in place of his face,
Grows the unexpected
Gasping, dot-eyed head
Of a calico trout.
He wants to introduce me
To the residents,
To the wonders of psychedelia,
The terrors of death and Man,
To the vicious cartoon symphony.
He wants to introduce me
To the mirror, but even there
I am not alone, for
My shadow, my slave, always skips along
Behind me in bondage. I have entered
An abomination, and I see
The past, present, and future
All playing together in a
Synesthetic game
Of hide-and-seek.
A game where no one ever
Finds anything, they only convulse,
Fast and bulbous, in the polyethylene bag.
Got me?

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