Harryette Mullen

as horses as for as purple as we go as heartbeat as if as silverware as it were as onion as I can as cherries as feared as combustion as want as dog collar as expected as oboes as anyone as umbrella as catch can as penmanship as it gets as narcosis as could be as hit parade as all that as icebox as far as I know as fax machine as one can imagine as cyclones as hoped as dictionary as you like as shadow as promised as drinking fountain as well as grassfire as myself as mirror as is as never as this

We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives. We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions. We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations. In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on. Before taking off, please extinguish all smoldering resentments. If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way. In the event of a loss, you’d better look out for yourself. Your insurance was cancelled because we can no longer handle your frightful claims. Our handlers lost your luggage and we are unable to find the key to your legal case. You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile. You are not presumed to be innocent if the police have reason to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet. It’s not our fault you were born wearing a gang color. It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights. Step aside, please, while our officer inspects your bad attitude. You have no rights we are bound to respect. Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible for what happens to you.

after Richard Wilbur The opposite of walk? A psychic with a crystal ball and tarot deck who sees green when your palm is read. At the sign of a red palm I don’t walk, I run.

up from slobbery hip hyperbole the soles of black feet beat down back streets a Yankee porkchop for your knife and fork your fill of freedom in Philmeyork never trouble rupture urban space fluctuates gentrify the infrastructure feel up vacant spades no moors steady whores studs warn no mares blurred rubble slew of vowels stutter war no more

I beg to dicker with my silver-tongued companion, whose lips are ready to read my shining gloss. A versatile partner, conversant and well-versed in the verbal art, the dictionary is not averse to the solitary habits of the curiously wide-awake reader. In the dark night’s insomnia, the book is a stimulating sedative, awakening my tired imagination to the hypnagogic trance of language. Retiring to the canopy of the bedroom, turning on the bedside light, taking the big dictionary to bed, clutching the unabridged bulk, heavy with the weight of all the meanings between these covers, smoothing the thin sheets, thick with accented syllables—all are exercises in the conscious regimen of dreamers, who toss words on their tongues while turning illuminated pages. To go through all these motions and procedures, groping in the dark for an alluring word, is the poet’s nocturnal mission. Aroused by myriad possibilities, we try out the most perverse positions in the practice of our nightly act, the penetration of the denotative body of the work. Any exit from the logic of language might be an entry in a symptomatic dictionary. The alphabetical order of this ample block of knowledge might render a dense lexicon of lucid hallucinations. Beside the bed, a pad lies open to record the meandering of migratory words. In the rapid eye movement of the poet’s night vision, this dictum can be decoded, like the secret acrostic of a lover’s name.

Of a girl, in white, between the lines, in the spaces where nothing is written. Her starched petticoats, giving him the slip. Loose lips, a telltale spot, where she was kissed, and told. Who would believe her, lying still between the sheets. The pillow cases, the dirty laundry laundered. Pillow talk-show on a leather couch, slips in and out of dreams. Without permission, slips out the door. A name adores a Freudian slip.

marry at a hotel, annul ’em nary hep male rose sullen let alley roam, yell melon dull normal fellow hammers omelette divine sunrises Osiris’s irises his splendid mistress is his sis Isis creole cocoa loca crayon gumbo boca crayfish crayola jumbo mocha-cola warp maid fresh fetish coquettish a voyeur leers at X-rated reels

Kills bugs dead. Redundancy is syntactical overkill. A pin-prick of peace at the end of the tunnel of a nightmare night in a roach motel. Their noise infects the dream. In black kitchens they foul the food, walk on our bodies as we sleep over oceans of pirate flags. Skull and crossbones, they crunch like candy. When we die they will eat us, unless we kill them first. Invest in better mousetraps. Take no prisoners on board ship, to rock the boat, to violate our beds with pestilence. We dream the dream of extirpation. Wipe out a species, with God at our side. Annihilate the insects. Sterilize the filthy vermin.

it’s rank it cranks you up crash you’re fracked you suck shucks you’re wack you be all you cracked up to be dead on arrival overdosed on whatever excess of hate and love I sleep alone if you were there then please come in tell me what’s good think up something psychic sidekick gimme a pigfoot show me my lifeline read me my rights

if your complexion is a mess our elixir spells skin success you’ll have appeal bewitch be adored hechizando con crema dermoblanqueadora what we sell is enlightenment nothing less than beauty itself since when can be seen in the dark what shines hidden in dirt double dutch darky take kisses back to Africa they dipped you in a vat at the wacky chocolate factory color we’ve got in spades melanin gives perpetual shade though rhythm’s no answer to cancer pancakes pale and butter can get rancid