planted in a pea-green DeSoto
It was vaguely like that but
Hello as the next Burma Shave sign
slid into view above the weeds & beer cans
under your felt hat
there flashed (where your head should have been goddamn it now where has it gone
a light like an operating room's
light & believe me it's got a voice
What's on your mind Boss
Sky big sky with a cancer
Stars & more
stars the stars have eyes they're dangerous
A nervous
breakdown when all engines including your car's
stop You were
muttering panicked like the microbe
you always felt you must be & nowhere to escape
to It was vaguely like that
Boss you look like you'll need a Manhattan with your breakfast
What pink elephants
stomping through the no-man's-land
They said it was nothing your body
as you hovered through the sooty lace curtain fog of Jersey
like the mother-fucking alien
presence you'd turned into the world had turned on
you like a ferocious appliance
gone haywire in the kitchen & with a vengeance
& there was that Friday night this hairy-eyed fly puked
acid & all that other insect
spit they suck up creation with on the carrot cake
Kiss the midnight snack good-bye & the icebox
It was vaguely like that when you asked
The Shadow The Shadow knows
the answer to the musical question Who's
human the elevator door
slammed clang-clang Here come the stars
like Bolsheviks & they've got voices
not to mention antennas
Humungous ventriloquists
Bark Bark the RCA Victor Dog's
in orbit
Boss it was like that
God-
forsaken contraptions jalopies
Where was your body
Jesus H Christ they said it was nothing
Your silver fillings singing
the DeSoto lurched
& decrepit as Jules Verne's rockets Boss you were gone
& now for the coming attractions
& that's all
F-f-f-folks that's all
Animal
Vegetable
Mineral
Cathedral
Radio
Temple of Doom
Of course the light's on but no one's home