My Funny Valentine

It wasn’t 10,000 unstrung fog beads the half moon perspired
        yellow
It was 10,000 lemon drops most of which tasted like sweat
It wasn’t a half moon about to conk out & crash land splat in an
        ash tree
It was a half pint of Four Roses whiskey headed straight for the
        olfactory cortex it wasn’t
Rosebuds babbling about the ineffable it was just me opening my
        trap which wasn’t a trap at all but a beak warbling
Laura is the face in the misty etc it wasn’t
A fern bar glimmering with candlelit chlorophyll Holy Smokes
        Laura looked great in a bowling shirt there it was
A greenhouse buzzing with O Thou Art Sublime Evening Star
But it sounded like Zippos hissing the first 3 bars to Somewhere
        a place for us
Unless it was the coffee talking

It wasn’t a greenhouse right on the verge of carbon dioxide
        desperation
It was a green chartreuse soused aquarium 10,000
Tonic water bubbles exploded across it splashing shipwrecked on
        deafening ice cubes they were
Desperate to get something off their chests the fact that Laura
        looks great in a bowling shirt for instance such
Tongue-tied effervescence it wasn’t my
Body floating thru ocean snow a clownfish stashed in my right
        jacket pocket it was
A Buick Skylark sunk facedown in a ditch amongst 97 impetuous
Sea anemones sprouting cowlicks in bad need of combing it wasn’t
        a cowlick it was a
Black comb humming Laura is the face in the misty etc à la
        Charlie Parker thru green waxed florist paper
Unless it was the coffee talking

It wasn’t a black comb hummed thru green waxed florist paper
        it was a
Catbird perched saxophonic atop a phone pole the phone pole being
Immaterial just about then there weren’t any phone calls there
        were crystalline red coral
Skeletons longing to do the tango it wasn’t a tango it was
The Waltz of the Flowers played backwards though it wasn’t a
        windowbox full of
Waltzing zinnias it was 79 cocoons splitting open inside my
        innards &
Tiger moths seeping out rustling cigarette paper
Wings which wings sizzled green in plastic ashtrays like a ditch
        full of catnip whispering
Laura looks great in a bowling shirt
Unless it was the coffee talking

It wasn’t a ditch full of catnip whispering Laura looks great
        in a bowling shirt it was
Wheels of Botticellean bicycles whooshing swimmingly taking a
        wrong turn thru the Tunnel of Love
It wasn’t the Tunnel of Love it was my mouth stuffed with
        waterlogged paperbacks hoping to
Speak to the situation
Unless it was the coffee talking

Jack Hayes
© 1990-2010