poem - "Popcorn Psalm"

 

Popcorn Psalm

 

You free-standing opportuned operatives  

tree-huggers sunsprung from real-time pastures

                       cybernian folk musicians stutter-up downstep

porch-stoop-can’t-stop-card-flop                       artists

heatproof ancient-of-days grandees                                 Sing!

 

Marylou an upstanding operative all lined up swathed in ecru

says they won’t up-stop her gilt popcorn poppers  

head in hands stands like a wheat farm lopper

                                    dew-drop dainty vocalizer

                        glowing brighter than an average diner saucer  

            or dawn-intruder derailed star-extruder

like an outstanding bell sound in a popped open eyedropper

lax in lazy interfering signals of indifferent style

as meanwhile shoe science demigods droop tensile and prehensile

            and teeny boppers’ hopes for happiness dwindle in bottom landers

whose forebears fall like freebies but superimpose astrologers

            who spin elaborate fun dials to make them register aces

as pop tops shingle sunshine on windowpane ecstasies   

                        and hodgepodge-mapped free-form simulated cloudbursts

sprinkle cornpone among carpenter fantasy scarecrows of ambush

like standalone flea farms on loam lands sputter their disastrous verbosity

like candy pinwheel destiny inflames a dying disk jockey

            like Dillinger’s derringer painted prism-cool radiating colors

                        to involve linguine pilot voices of feral muskrat bamboozlement

                                    to hollow out unsavory haystacks pitched on Napoleon linoleum

and to casually rub-a-dub-dub against sandbox steps with glib fingers   

pan-dripping isosceles puppet master dance routine triangles

handholding in petulant know-nothing-ness where boats crisscross

and tonic-tangle stealthy stonewash wranglers in flannel fog amend us

poshly regenerative in stunned thought funnels

to strand two skedaddling doctors in paellas of condescension  

                                                where shallots and grits connote austere pattering cuisine

                                    indiscriminate to battered labor resisters

                        and people paddle pottery wheels of velvet indifference on soft shoes

            popping flickering pot-whirls butting goatherd wineskin songs of experience

                        as my indie minarets numinous diminish in baleful tortoise sense

                                    they contest upholstery grains and toe twist the caterer

to fenestrate a panic of traditional Italian-joint formulae

                                    as blooper-reel family friends materialize by hokum amnesia

                        and idle in hominid-free parking lots full of canine friends on parade

            who sit silvered on icy martian surfaces considered over slowly closing scenes

fishing holes for rich intellectual masterminds of nothingness

            where strands of silk sink in recesses of their own atman of impossibility

                        as in profusion coalescent snarling hep cats flatten ice soccer cities

            that didn’t illuminate any table-top masterpiece enigmas

that the mash of secret flowing rationale transmits radioactively into space

                        that the sea sun sat slowly surrounding sixteen sorrowful sisters

                                    those irregular beige compact bunk magic saturation shadows

                                                in holistic american nightfall train-whistle-soundscapes

                                                            bulletin-boarding blasphemous blarney

                                                                         surrounded where sylphs sit sadly

                                                                                    in thin nightwind singsong

                                                                          ancient robbers offer meal tickets

                                                             laid over the dewy clover with mother

                                    cardboard-boxing memories sent endlessly to Spain

                        she hovers over the hoovered monolithic braille interior

            inside long-suffering data stuffed with the (she smiled) mind-mirror

says holler if you hear a bear or a big white bus driver critter

otherwise her gilt popcorn poppers which won’t punch cards don’t matter to her

whether slowly overhead sundials rotate rainbows of radical synergy

            silver threshing wheels intimidate warm sunshine weather

                        threading fencepoles split-open with weed-wattled rusty wheels

                        and chiming chaotic cherubim in massive chapels of recidivism

                        whose sparkling bed-cubes stack apocryphal tube spaces within

            kayak-coast constant in satisfied seas of the spinning subconscious

promise to penetrate perpetual pockets of penitence penury and complacence

prime pumpfuls of promise for purposes plunged in pools of permanence

            which reprise sudden hope gulches the deposition split open

standstill staccato switches pop up underneath archaic entryways  

garden entry airways drill seed corn above and beyond

drop down shutters start upside down before smiling everydays youth

that won’t stop my poppers, says Marylou, gilt-edged with truth

outstanding and anodyne bathed in palest light

she gains assortative tandem cups heeding postwar peasant lingo  

they won’t shop these corn poppers mumbles Marylou

I can stop nothing falling-down in out-leapt ineloquence

porchswing hewn-gargoyle primeval unsalad days

                    o butterfinger jungle guns in bathwater

             as blustery jingle bells labor in a stale breeze

where purpling garage eaves discharge a dying sun

and there orbiting no-can-do fatalism day crashes over end

like golden popcorn in proud gleaming Marylou poppers

where wall-papered twitches of forgotten portals motion behind her

and regal collections of riot barrels create ocular jocular sound signals

     or maybe when nobody is a standout conspires with nearby plight  

and all my poppers says goldilocks-Marylou shuttling corn from the conveyor

are sputtering into the inner lid the butter injects blending tantalizing wonder

            and each kernel’s duplicate sun at the far end of creation is its own mirror

                        where each kernel its sister its brother its cousin and cousins itself more

                                    and each kernel’s kernel the same inside gold inside gold

                                                and each kernel photocopy clasps its mother image inside

                                    and each kernel atomic structure finds inside a molecular stride

                        and each kernel satisfied in endless traveling reinvention realizes

            when somehow chunky cultural clients climb down casement windows

and churlishly insistent cranberry people smoke out of their ears

            in the midnight hour when UFOs rule darkened skies above them

whose tongs coordinate shop-class-like who-men rising richly up the maypole 

whose energy surges granfalloon-ish-hued beams staging once and future instances

whose brain research happiness pines for olden days with flying hokey lying pokes

whose proud plaster trophies on foam fences collapse columnar and gnarly

whose free pirates ching ripostes on tiny paper stickers laughing coolly

                        their long houses open for business every holiday snow or not

in the dingle dangle morning less one hour for friends only

                                                            they won’t stop the gilt popcorn from popping

                                                                        not stop to stopping finagle clops to clopping

                                                                                    to observe all oblong oblique oil spills

     and carefully noted onion-semolina badges

who use serpents to discriminate non-discriminant

sales of shoes from the sublunary region of achalasia

water wheels wobble quivering and bumping with malignant songs

show me heal me where different parts of the towers touch the spirit

while cereal gun competition serves corporations of foodists

and returns to lamaist rotation in a formulaic way

like Liberace overcome by psychic fears of Italy

                                                whose trip-hopping shoe shopping and flip-flopping

                                    realizes its own stipulated inner neolithic motionless levitation

                        the of-which none such not much summers-ends imagine

            start again ends again when Marylou golden pop emboldens

steep against legionary fervor fervidly fondly not enfolding inward

a warden of loco thought in events unrealizes particularized what-ifs

and serf genius actions become universally intuitive

measuring the waltzing multitudes increasingly numeric and stitch-less

                        til Marylou’s golden basket recirculates timeful enthrallments

                                    mirthful myriad haphazard honest winter-ending styles

                        to see herself move finger-ward past slipshod champion hieroglyphs

            whose ancestors fly captive in flip-flop-and-fly attitudes laid-low  

wilderness-lost-in-ed-ness guest of nature-neutral queenly popcorn mosaic isms exuded

            in stone-engraved stopgap statute statues for students of staid stoogery

                        waylaid by washerwomen woven into windsong wishful and watery

athwart similar civilizations apt to see godlily souls outspooked   

in cool permeation strewn by four-second diminished panics

ere reruns reform from elation stairways

            on ye stations of the subway

her basket of popcorn kernels golden salted shining

                                    yesterday the same as everyday as neverday streaming

                        fossiliferous formidable tattoos of totem time flashing

            pinwheel whirling whorlform inroads to mountain caverns

trot popular paths out on pioneer burrows over flown

warpathic opus opinion neutron person movers

in a heated air vortex swirl cyclonic

a treadle springs music gaps in municipal over-growers

            who would have us bereaved of general glee fastidiums

                        like a bird chirp fence ruffles with life’s motions

                                    like a word weasel ripples below an ocean wish

                                                like the loose wheel despairs grease as it rolls offish

                                                            like a chimp in a clown suit screeches hard in a chapel

                                                                        like a bullmoose bottle hangs in an angry oak

                                                            like a dancing parrot whistles on the green stirs

                                                all things at once one at a time over a thousand years

                                    like a crated poultry wagon down empty sky roads bounces

                        like poor folks holler in the mansion at a crater of lime balloons 

            like Orion in a sky boat his belt a lasso he starts the golden corn popper

where the desert meets the upland and golden eagles calling above soar

            Marylou mops up golden spatters of popcorn butter grease and salt

                        her heart in her hands her heart on her sleeve heart in her mouth

            all is well lights out radio silence and wait not want not watching

the world will rise up before her a triple peppermint mist dream in frozen overdrive

a fairway where runts perform election follies

a mycological station of wayward fungus

she plants kernels like Johnny Appleseed

leaves kernels golden shining earth borne

            radiating far flung planets of nosegays

freeform runes in rare elfin rituals  

ply garage rocking leaves all marble-undefined

new originals copycat the jones crusher tempo rushing

 an ingot gold cover of Let a Man Come in and Do the Popcorn

gestates passionate pretend possibilities in snarling riffs  

aboard the toe-in-water Argo to test for bathtub golden fleece afterworlds  

     chiming climbing walls of involuntary daydreams and mirrors and ceilings

await golden dawn creatures who search on point-to-point shuttles

crumble pie-crust customers who arrive waitress-wide side-walking

their nutrient-starved particles disambiguating at the lunch counter

in a modicum of intangibility they upswirl each outward breeze within

            as downstreet a music vacuum reverberates

                        as daytime hunger sound-mixers sculpt oscillations

                                    as the hunched-over guitarists emote histrionically

                                                as Lester less loudly lashes longitudes of lackluster lyrics

                                                            as billowy chords and feedback tornado the block

                                                            as Let a man come in and do the Popcorn! is implored

                                                as the smartest thing to do

                                    as popcorn dance instructors grow on trees

                        as they fall down before you on luxuriant knees

            imploring you with please please please pleas

airstreams populous with ululations popped from hammer-gold stars

tendering richly jewel inlaid head rest baroque stand pipe flippers

and roughshod knock-off necessities for present day flappers

                        in hillbilly suede saddleshoe propper-uppers

fleet-footed footwear to trip the light impossible

O, the pop-top box-top Botox fettle-tinged tincture

                                    hedgehops blip stormtrooper tagalong sidekicks

riding along beams to goof up chancy grant benefactors

who least-unplanned in instant rigor of old timey park path routes

can utter the muster up of down-under stern wheels

Marylou does not say you may spurn an optimal prefab

as when matter folds in upon itself in protean waves   

            and the surgeon confers with the zealot the shaman

                        and nutrients neutralize neural communities

                                    and legless angels road-race on wheels of fire

                                                and confoundationalism rises high above the congregants

                                                            and flying fish flop faster in furrows of flatwater

                                                                        and greedy thrill-seeking bastards flail away

                                                                        and seedy mountaineers rappel into camp

                                                and fingernail forests fill firestorm-fast with fly swatters

                                                and nations are risen like bread dough squatters

                        and dooms to crashing space alien universes are communicated

to submicroscopic galaxies to clot with unremitting gloom and dullness

            above the fruitful plain of lettuce-green sprouts untwirling in horizon-

to-horizon dark brown and fertile soil beneath chintz-blue sky

            puffing happily above preparing nourishing rain for later today

and though Marylou’s popcorn cloud straddles luminous

these golden tornadoes we won’t arrest her corn-from-popping 

            misunderstanding her glad-handing upstanding pals

these hand-stand fortunate few foolish fast steppers

daily original daddy dew-drop dinosaur herders

                        cloudseeding hippies and Hittite revival onomatopoeias

crystalized in free-floating canalsful of encyclopedias

 

pop tops for tree-huggers in glassy glens above

                                    edge-tripper troop-schlepper hog-slopper moor-moaners

paint shadows on sunbeams upside rusty atomic chain reactors

I won’t quit my popcorn popping Marylou says against onrushing fate

            imagine glitter imps who leap up as though down from a gold edge

                        just imagine them

popcornless she says