My Funny Valentine


It wasn’t 10,000 unstrung fog beads the half moon perspired yellow
It was 10,000 lemon drops most of which tasted like sweat
It wasn’t a half moon about to conk out & crash land splat in an ash tree
It was a half pint of Four Roses whiskey headed straight for the olfactory cortex it wasn’t
Rosebuds babbling about the ineffable it was just me opening my trap which wasn’t a
       trap at all but a beak warbling
Laura is the face in the misty etc it wasn’t
A fern bar glimmering with candlelit chlorophyll Holy Smokes Laura looked great in a
       bowling shirt there it was
A greenhouse buzzing with
O Thou Art Sublime Evening Star
But it sounded like Zippos hissing the first 3 bars to
Somewhere a place for us
Unless it was the coffee talking


It wasn’t a greenhouse right on the verge of carbon dioxide desperation
It was a green chartreuse soused aquarium 10,000
Tonic water bubbles exploded across it splashing shipwrecked on deafening ice cubes they were
Desperate to get something off their chests the fact that Laura looks great in a bowling shirt for
       instance such
Tongue-tied effervescence it wasn’t my
Body floating thru ocean snow a clownfish stashed in my right jacket pocket it was
A Buick Skylark sunk facedown in a ditch amongst 97 impetuous
Sea anemones sprouting cowlicks in bad need of combing it wasn’t a cowlick it was a
Black comb humming
Laura is the face in the misty etc à la Charlie Parker thru green
       waxed florist paper
Unless it was the coffee talking


It wasn’t a black comb hummed thru green waxed florist paper it was a
Catbird perched saxaphonic atop a phone pole the phone pole being
Immaterial just about then there weren’t any phone calls there were crystalline red coral
Skeletons longing to do the tango it wasn’t a tango it was
The Waltz of the Flowers played backwards though it wasn’t a windowbox full of
Waltzing zinnias it was 79 cocoons splitting open inside my innards &
Tiger moths seeping out rustling cigarette paper
Wings which wings sizzled green in plastic ashtrays like a ditch full of catnip whispering
Laura looks great in a bowling shirt
Unless it was the coffee talking


It wasn’t a ditch full of catnip whispering Laura looks great in a bowling shirt it was
Wheels of Botticellean bicycles whooshing swimmingly taking a wrong turn thru the Tunnel of Love
It wasn’t the Tunnel of Love it was my mouth stuffed with waterlogged paperbacks hoping to
Speak to the situation
Unless it was the coffee talking
NEXT POEM
BACK TO POEBIZ MAIN PAGE