Buffalo and Marshmallows

John Yau

 

Buffalo and Marshmallows

 

It’s an old glory when a toenail crocodile
named Greta Gabo

 

boasts that any tall
thumb tucking

 

pimple popper
still in touch

 

with the bottom of his atavistic roots
will soon be rented out

 

to the King of pencil Toads
and his last iron caravan

 

Dairy wolves howl
at empty spoon

 

while I sleep in black mall
lily padded trailer park

 

answer the second
second

 

I’m stalled in a parallel stupor
squeezed between

 

red hurt of a fall potato
and blue stones of a part-time seed shifter

 

I’m one of the jilted
eager to bite the crust

 

I plead with what’s left of the steam engine
because I know it’s soft pajamas

 

being one of the flies
A free sample sniffing around

 

the tattered drums of the effluvial honey
You get to count creamy blots and carpet burns

 

transmit grains of junked passion
to the weekend handwarmers

 

west of Sandusky, Ohio
adopted home of tormented petal pushers

 

one charm boxers and retired log nuts
the whole glad parking lot of idle fun seekers

 

You even score the church fire
and pray to the invisible camera

 

You get down on your full grown knees
and you begin to stay

 

In better times, I lived on a bingo farm
ate off a checkerboard

 

Each morning, I baked out the stains
and flicked drivel into the yard