trout

After Arp: 2

Richard von Sturmer

The Empress of Emptiness

What a belle,
what an absolute
fashion plate.

The Empress of Emptiness
puts on her tinsel crown
while the black bluejays
attack her battlements
with toothpicks
and tape recorders.

Serious tinnitus is sweeping through
Tintagel Castle
and Titus has gone to ground.

The Empress of Emptiness
gathers together her long dress
and disappears
down the elastic corridor.

My Uncle

My uncle
the acquirer of spoons
blind as a bat
skimming over the Astroturf.

Old polaroids
lie scattered like tiles
in his abandoned garden.

For a joke he once placed
a small, cloth sailor
inside a condom.

My uncle
who would break into a sweat
at the sight of a dead matchstick.

He loved the air
the letter H
the sound of castanets.

My uncle
who hypnotized
the King of Thailand

When I open the door
to his garden shed
sparrows fly out
from the rusted hinges.

Elephants

Elephants are never
irrelevant.
They use adjectives
to extract
honey from honeycombs.