Too funicular for me.

Those informers to whom I’m betrothed are so

mountain galore that what comes after their chicken run

is anyone’s guess. Not edification in the Ways

& Means of Malice that’s a certainty. O clutter

of Glockenspiel, may the one who excels beyond

all measure be measured, down a peg or two, say to

4am, too early for gamut, for Gospel to lead

with that proverbial left. Should I, in this the fifth

& final year of my notorious conviviality,

relish myself with money? How much against

the pugnacious would that set me? Ah, those

dark days in Peshawar, who would have thought

I’d be praised for health decoration: May no frenzy

visit Thee. In unison, yes, they all said it, gathered around

my stinking bed in dead of night. And No, your request

for sanctuary has been denied. So no problem

if I keep shaving with this rusty cutthroat? Mission

statement: clean face makes clean mind. Mind

my p’s & q’s & I’ll be mountain galore, yes? It’s

palpable the No they unison, backing away

from my cutthroat. Has it always been like this, these

in-the dead-of-night-visitors in their grass skirts like cops

in some never-never land harassing poor me? What

has history done to my body, that’s what I’d like to know.

It should never have been this mouth-to-mouth nothing

with much negative about my hearing. Should never have been

a throat with wire, the one who tried to whisper English, yours

truly, who chose to have his noise absorbed by those

who wandered in & saw undressed the great plenty

I might have been, might still be, that pilgrimage

to the tomb of Il Duce still possible, thereat to wax

lyrical, candied, anointed, lubricated, decked out

in latest design flak jacket, bowler hat & spats, offering

myself to the first psychopomp who has the wit

to trump me, trompe l’oeil, trot-it-out-let’s-see

what-you-got, etc. Is it time to swoon? I hope so,

my feet are killing me, grammarians on my back about

my stumblebum meter or lack thereof. Reduced

to a crawl, Il Duce looking down from on high.

Too funicular for me.