An Electric Galleria of Earthly Delights
John Marvin
Painter’s Preface
The gray crystal globe shows lonely debris,
a shell an empty park, a leafless tree.
Symbol is my mode. Sometimes, late at night,
I melt. As soupy mist I ooze through village paths,
fringes lapping doorsteps. To rest, collect in sloughs,
places of generation where scintilla skim
on ergotic flames clouded, backlit, dim.
Morning
At dawn their naked asses on the lawn,
a pink robed network anchor offers guidance
for the hapless couple. Frogs and mice
are eaten at their feet. The news, Vincent Price,
a profile of Marilyn Monroe,
Regis, Kathy, Joan and Donald Duck.
Observing owl holed in the pink sphere,
the pink sphere at the base of the pink
apparatus tower alchemical fractionator
Jeannie dreams, G.I. Joe talks
to Meryl Streep about Hollywood gossip.
Affable ape rides tame, mellow elephant.
Benevolent serpent winds the trunk of palm.
Mild, cordial blackbirds spiral
down transformed to doves and gulls
near where unicorns drink undisturbed.
Afternoon
Wading in the Central Pool Arlene comes
to Adam holding his barrel taking
a cherry from a generous gadwall
Craig and Dimitri come to blows over
finch flicker and kingfisher observing
Dixie together dancing naked in
the pool Craig and Gloria sex tape with
giant red raspberry impaled on his
penis out of which there grows a heron
Adam moves to oust Erica from the
parade of storks cranes herons and humans
riding around Central Pool on horses
cattle goats griffins pigs lions camels
reindeer Trevor overheard Adam and
CEO Arlene talk about Helga
notes growing throwing the gun in the
river the closeness between Gloria
Mimi Derek and Angelique find on the
ledge round the black ball tower a couple
copulating while standing on their heads
Spencer devastates Ryan's mermaids ride
flying fishes through the sky when Lucy
overhears Blake whisk Faith away flying
a griffin while John makes a connection
Dennis informs Linc so Eric can fly
and disseminate cherries but then hes-
itates to tell Isabella about
his search for Jenna's father Dominic
The owls watch, learning, recording as pairs fuck
in mussel shells, pet in transparent spheres,
or stroke the lewd, false scales of carp. Cherries,
raspberries, strawberries.
Suck my sweet, red strawberries
and know of bliss juiced, seeded
in the venue of drought and rain.
Evening
nocturnal armies phalanx
amorphous shapes captives
scourged hordes incendiary
nocturnal shapes phalanx
etherized armies scourge
amorphous armies scourge
incarcerate eviscerate
towers of the burning city
tiffany towers ignite
shoals of searing immolators
shoals
of tearing immolators
lake glow black
sky glow black
sky glow yellow
While cities moan a covey pierced from ear
to shining ear the arrow strait through groans
of pregnant fantasy stick through up blade
slice flames gallows ladder.
We stop at Whitebone Pub to sit
and drink and rest and shoot the shit.
The ladder is for herders and tormentors
to climb and look out through the open
picture end or table above dual trunks
barkless for these thousand score of years.
Just watch and be refreshed to see the screams:
panoplied knight intestines eaten by pack,
baritone impaled by strings of harp,
the music goes on and can not stop.
Presider high chaired eats his host
then drops him in a fecal sack
down to the pool of promises betrayed.
So soon it's time again to ply our trade.