You Must Change Your Life with Kitchenware

I soak a rolling pin in heirloom perfume,  

hire a shoe shiner for companionship

lonely as a city free of feet.

I exculpate an omelet using Uri Geller’s cutlery.

Parting gifts, a religion concession

but you can’t blame spirituality

for Teflon gospel-leaning.

The snake charmer plays dead

until St. Bernard licks the retina

scan. The dirtier the dollar bill,

the greater its biography.

The counter’s elegance,

breakroom wheat.

James Doohan

The UFO DVD helps me sleep,

Trekker narrating a speculative Reticuli.

End table with heirloom lamp—theatre of flowers

painted around the pull string dovetailing a rhododendron.

I date an abductee out of lurid curiosity.

Mothership and Möbius strip,

space kites we become. 

I don’t get a say in who suckles a cosm,

but a nanny-cam planet I can swing.

The tarantula’s insomnia means house calls

from animal masseuse.

God, toss me the microfiche.

Beauty Pageant Marionette

We come to the sawdust portion,

sliver a tie-breaker.

Glamor shoots, my hereafter.

One mistake and it’s picture frame

or sandpaper worth a teacup peek:

Pulcinella ragamuffin,

Gehenna bottom-shelf.

Crank my arm for congenial.

All the sad-fingered do.

At My Doppelgänger Convention We Discuss Synecdoche, the Betterment of Soup

Jon, a three-pound weight gain won’t set you apart from

Southern brethren. Lack of navy-bean fundamentals will.

Talking-in-tongues Jon, don’t confuse minestrone

with splintery nativity, Potemkin tomato.

Rhode Island Jons: their sibylness gazpacho-

smudged on neo-Freudian pontoon.

Laredo Jon, I forgot he existed—turned state’s

borscht and off to the incognito strainer he went.

You are as with it as split pea, basil vaguely.

Fragile globule, Jon-probation removed.

Nostalgia-Poor, Nutrient-Rich

Caesura with noise-cancelling headphones.

Glyph customization after worm-hole tryst.

Spark plugs retrofitting solar-powered amanuensis.

Riding a cigarette float, NicoDerm patches tossed gratis.

One’s interpersonal Romanovs outgrowing their execution room.

The Lesser of Two Down Unders

“Day after day, it reappears” – Colin Hay

On the foyer of your tongue skulks

that Men at Work song, “Overkill”—

Australia-size bristle,

Queensland didgeridoo—

wondering if photographic memory is

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder’s tradeoff.

Mausoleum limousine, your haggard baronet.