I'm in the herb department of Castorama
side-tracked into looking for a boiled-wool spliff satchel
a parting gift for the Witch
let's go breathing in the humble grass
I also need the gear to leave in the sense of remove my own verdant mark
on Monte Calenzone by night
the piped music twirls me round and I feel the lure of this encrusted Ottoman weed-siphon
which is the dog's bollocks, shiny as tope, and the colour of nougat floating on Redon seascapes
the hang-tag is crammed with tiny tips like: creosote the underbelly of a seabass before wall-mounting
I want to try fly fishing in Alto Val Staffora
it's mainly for the poncing around in thigh boots and braces
or perhaps chest waders, which invade the physics of the pool
beyond your wildest dreams
cast up your gaze:
leave behind the city sky's faint grey grip on pale balsa
the barely audible clacsons at the back of your mind
may serve to push these half-mountains slightly back together
though you will never quite get to save the Amaryllis piled in boxes outside the florist's kiosk
do you think I might have met Thel under another name?
January flickers and the screen goes Windows environment blue
you speak of fourteeners, and trombones which can be raised in unison
or dive and roll in flying ace solos
when F-valved, certain arrangements crave unlikely melodies
prepared mangle
my kite guitar
and your new trombone!
brimming with silence and soft sheen
sliding its access, producing suckboot curves
your bracing strut is hard work and Trombone Arm conceptual grounds
for Italian percentage disability pay
underarm hair fatally roll-on matted
reduced circulation conceivably due to pit score clamp
jobs you can do with Trombone Arm:
/hard discount supermarket bouncer/ /transversal plumber/
/golf caddy/
/fledgling/
jobs you cannot do with Trombone Arm:
/photocopy monk/ /seamstress/
/pied piper/
/soul sculptor/
others horny jobs:
/radio ham/ /plight analyst/ /fig cupper/ /floogle/
/dragon-snapper/
/ship's carpenter/
/codpiece muse/
/mystical fish handler/
/late-night bongo wizard/
Milan February 2007