Song of The Immomal Man

I've been cleaning out my room.
Rumors say.
I've been clearing out the clutter.
And the butter.
Tearing up the parquet.

I've been clearing out my space.
Roomier stay.
I've been stopped by all the neighbors.
The abutters and abaters.
Eyes tearing up and away.

strongwindowpened

Barrel through the hallways
Pick up all the fields
Sew together letters
ramble Roman omen steeled
Hammers turning heliphone
Elphabasic bastic
Record-spinning runners
checkout keying maps elastic
Ruder Tudor platitude
Paddle album cannon
Easy laid are latitudes
Harsh the hands of salmon
Rescinded.

grown wrong

The fecund marsh we step in
Bore an obelisk of good
Whose arms were switch'd to weapons
When we meddled with its wood

We inquired whence it came
Who it was and how and why
Was it pressing down the plain
Was it propping up the sky

The wind (its tongue) did whisper
Made a curtsy with its boughs
Our vertiginous fixture
Spoke of was, will be and now

It told us, at length, of age
Man, a pond. Itself, ocean;
How envy becomes rage; the
Illusion that is motion

With a fury hard and shrill
We addressed it in the fen
"You stay stoic then, stand still,
As we truncate now your stem."

This strange thing without caprice
To our horror and chagrin
Seemed so dreadfully at peace
As we tore it limb from limb

Its fingers were our arrows
Arrowheads, the teeth of saws
We sapped it of its marrow
It became without because

Its attire it did yield
For our bite was worse than bark
Standing naked, without shield
It bathed terribly in spark

Unkindly we used kindling
Pieces stolen from its breast
Cinder, cedar, grown, dwindling
Tissue tormenting the flesh

It would never asked us why
So we put it in the ground
Then the branches got too high
so we chopped the good tree down

wishing for more wishes

It was right after he was telling us about his gardening techniques. About how he made sure every seed went down exactly one and one half inches and how when the sunflowers bloomed he would put hats on them so that they would look (though he may have said "feel") more dignified.

It was just following her apologies for having picked his snapdragons and lilies and forget-me-nots the day before and her explanation that she didn't know he had put forth so tedious an effort and her excuse that she thought the plants were decorations left about by the crew.

It was immediately prior to the conversation we all of us had about our favorite launderers and dry-cleaners back at our respective homes, to lighten the mood after we had recovered from the initial shock.

It was a while before we saw the hazy pancake of land in the distance, amidst bookshelf cliffs and a strange glow.

It was some time subsequent from the point at which we had gotten at least knee-deep into our cups and were all a fair linen closet's worth of sheets to the wind.

It was postliminary to him jokingly proposing to her and going off to find a crowbar and a clawhammer while she mumbled on about engagement rings and flower arrangements, mortgages and piano lessons for "the children."

That's when we realized that the crates were filled with dynamite, not diamonds, and we threw ourselves overboard.

champagne police fire

Don't be so sensitive.
It's okay to lie about stuff that nobody cares about.
I fought off wolves and sold the capital of Rhode Island.
I rejected every hayride. I scraped off the first, second and second-second layers divulge your secret unto me pour Linus onto rocks.
Marginal iconography. When I leave, everything I said before leaves with me. You leave me with no choice even as you remind me where I live.
I've started a war, and kitchenware is my only artillery. My war is in your eyes. My heart is in your heart is in my heart is in your car.
My heart is my champion.
My heart is a parking lot.
Tie up your loose-leaf with chains and bars and hope.
Set your afterburners to cool and make
a merry bonfire.
I saved you a seat.
I save everything.
Poke out my eyes with an umbrella. That was a very unsatisfying ending.
This was unsatisfied.
Statistitize me, baby.

stick around and you just might learn something

All I've got left are these camel wings and radio stickers.
I lost everything but my honey jar photos and this troubled alphabet.
I couldn't find the old album full of those heartattack bones and film tangos.
The walls are patterned with violin ink and candy treeforts from my childhood.
In case of fire, let my Spanish matchstick puzzles and shoeguns take the first boat.
Would it be too much trouble to ask for an extra watchmat and maybe a temper-hook?
I liked it better with the reversible mattress bullies and royalcake turntables we used to have.
Has anyone seen those self-supporting mittens and the hollering mining accessories I needed?
Everyone's been talking about my brand new tennis wheel and the frying change strapped to my back.
Let's continue, now that we are all familiar with my frozen ambulance stand and matching sunset tycoons.

I traded in my new tiger diary for an old, dirty one. Now I can't find either.

I'm going to be gone for a long while.
I'm going whether you come or not.
I'm going back to the old country.
I'm going away for the winters.
I'm going up to the mountain.
I'm going into that house.
I'm going back in time.
I'm going down south.
I'm going for a walk.
I'm going home.

make a repair, Karen

Dear sirs,

I'm just writing to let you know that, since I was out of stamps, I had to write your address on this postcard as the return address.

-Me

(excerpt from) The Immomal Man Conversations (pt. II)

Shaken up. A mover and a shaker.
A huslte-bustle flower.
I staired (sic) at my flowers today. Violets on the rise.
A whip on based market.
An economic bloom.
Stop and sell the roses.
Petal familias.
Rows and rows of dad.
Leaves leave me.
Leaves leave me not.
Seeding for two, please.
Mulch (sic) too pleased. Training for thought.
An astronaught.
Space.

What matters most is mostly made up of empty space, anyway. Does that mean that what matters is empty?
Or does emptiness matter?
O, to be filled with matter, to empty one's self of space.
A cosmo-not.
Space.

hot on their heels

My puma is a spectacular cat racing against time to find our treasure.
My puma lives eternally and is without peer or measure.
With keen instinct and a coat that shines like the riches of kings,
My puma carries me to the ends of the earth as we search for wrongs to right and days to save.
Adoration and fame hold our interest not, for we are heroes pure and true.
No measure goes untaken, no wanting goes forsaken.
Odds of daunting magnitude we brave.
There has never been a team of righteous warriors nor steadfast friends quite like my puma and me.
The iniquitous forces of evil stand no chance against us.
No kingpin of vice, no rascal of mischief, no vengeful god of the sky above nor murderous demon of the sea below
Will prosper in our shining light of justice.
We will make the world free.
My puma and I take action.

ennui go

A figurehead now, I was once in line at the ready, at the bow.
But I'm gonna prowl the prow.
I have other places to be right now.
I'm a debate team champion.

To His Excellency, Ronnus Johannason, we will never forget you

I just wanted to let you know that I think now would be a pretty okay time for me to finally get to use the word "chapeau."

karate mouth

I was regaling the children with tales of my quest;
From golden vale and mountain crest,
Through oceans filled with escalator stairs.
And how, with but a walking staff,
My wits and hands, I cleared my path
Of dragons, giants, ogres, flying bears,
Sweet potato minotaurs,
Giant clockwork dinosaurs,
A devil made of aftershave and tears,
A griffin who could sing the blues,
Goblins riding kangaroos,
Giant spiders who ate jam and fear,
A coalacanth with a harpoon,
Baboons the size of two baboons,
A warlock who sold ladles to the Greeks,
Top hat-wearing demon hordes,
With canes that also became swords,
Drinking soups distilled from eagle beaks,
A cyclops sporting a glass eye,
Solar-powered octopi,
Lumberjack-devouring hidebehinds,
A bugbear wrote the alphabet,
While chupacabras played cornet,
A phoenix built a house of melon rinds
A spelling bee champion yeti,
Centaurs made of cold spaghetti,
A djinn that fed on gingerbread and gin,
A hydra keeping soccer scores,
Clans of freckled manticores,
And krakens playing with a skittles pin.
"Weren't you afraid?" "And did you cry?"
"Not once." to the children said I,
Receiving, then, a knock across my crown.
Their mother shushed me, said to them,
"The bravest and most daring men
Are those wise 'nuff not to travel 'round
The keenest of the world can see
Not beast you beat but how you be
A human being no matter where you've been
Is how the who who fits you true,
And tell the monsters all to shoo,
Knows more important ways your time to spend.
So wash your faces, eat your sup,
Your quest for now is growing up
And time it is to venture to your beds."
"It's true," I said, the imps asleep,
"I feared no witch, ghost, fang-clawed creep,
Leviathan, man-eater, living dead,
No beasts of land nor sky nor sea,
Only one thought did frightened me
That you, my love, and home were o so far."
And as we settled in our loft
She said to me, whispering soft,
"The where you were is not the where you are."

(excerpt from) The Immomal Man Conversations

I am an optimistic man. Still, I cannot help but wonder just what they would find.
Then do not let them look.
I find times in between where I am a desert out at sea without an ankle upon which to stand.
There are fine times when even sailors beach on wry land.
When I was a child, I remember, the eye was easy and carefree, the needle tall as a skyscraper. Now that I am grown, it is a time of other places and a camel lives there.
Everyone loves a parade, but no one ever rolls twice on big decisions.
But big decisions make for small change.
Yes, even water will make a poor backpack for a duck. Autumn is, it seems, too early to V.
Then would you U?
Would you?
After hours, I could be convinced to work on most else, but not at length. Or lengths.
The aftermath of afterthought is more than mere numbers and theory.
I thought after somebody once. It almost cost me my job.
The night is a gorilla with a peach. Terrible and hungry.
Terror is the only real safety net in the trapeze act of danger.
I once designed a trapeze.
But an artist you were not.
Alas.
I will.

alphabet glue

I sent a set stet to enter terse tense sent to stern.

ta-ta a go go

¿Tu tienes un tartatamudeo?
¿Uno tengo-go?

slander sandy bagels and a bag of bandy sandals

I am a polyhistorian, a historina of exuberance!
I measure degrees to the highest of teas to farm firm forms of peppermints,
Haberdash in dry paint and shoes owned by the saints, I feint and I pass out the alms tray,
With hammers and milk and curtains of silk I erect pianofortes,
Rob barons barren, barrel over, get rarin' and ready to duck in a pinch,
Dig though a barn with old cider and yarn and never do so much as flinch,
Escape any prism, using knives and nosism and massive missives from the masses,
With cutlasses forged in a forged cut-glass gorge , I'll forage and cut loose lost lasses.

Reminded.

orange door hinge

I ate my wardrobe to disguise myself as luggage and travel for free.

a gold star on the honor roll of life

As per your request, here is a de-alphabetized list of some things which can be set down (no. 7 is missing):
1. Garden hose
2. Model plane
3. Instruction pamphlet
4. Fork (in a stern manner, if not setting a table)
5. Blueprints for a grand cathedral
6. Excellent pastry
7. [missing]
8. One's self
9. Extra piano hammers