David Braden – Rikki-Tikki-Tavi


David Braden

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

senses quiet deeper to Amish in my room, that’s all.
Exactly how risky are the Caucuses this time of year
Brigadier Prendergast?  Lights fever out, yet
what damage could damage ever do to air or air
do to air anyway Mr. Smarty Pants?

He hates it when I lob stones like that, off-topic and sharp
but replies that the answer to both is the same:
“minimal, provided of course you can master these flash cards.”

And then, in that other part the whale resurfaced to port
while starboard the whole tone of the conversation lifts
and does a two-step on the porch

sweet sweet bird sing mad dance tremble the ground
bazaar stalls bathed in stripes of shade make me
delirious, make me think I am I am
I think I am am the attar of freesias.

Who let that snake in here
to drink tap beer and do the jitterbug?
There’s no harm in leaving him alone.
He is merely as apples are to oranges
or peanut butter to gumwood.

Silly bumpkin,
by Monday he’ll be long gone,
sorely missed even, while you;
you will be folded inside in again
like the delicate eardrums of the whale,
misplaced naively by a sloppy survey firm

return to SHAMPOO 8