Pretty Colours

andrew broder:
dear god please give me the strength
to just totally fuck my brains out
said the amateur icon to the telephone totem pole
and if you squint your eyes just right
you can see the shark fin protrude from all the globes
bobbing up and down in the black sea
and if you sit in one spot and blow and blow and blow
you can blow the walls of your own house down
while massaging with your ring finger
the gun barrel size space behind your chin bone
and so let's have a pizza party with refreshments
and celebrate the capability
of building and fixing and building and fixing
and you and the shirt you tucked in on
but all the veins in between the words
of the flying trapeze instruction manual
require top of volcano vision to scratch and sniff
daydream of panic-seeking missiles
to pinball ricochet inside the dog smile your brains out.

why?:
i keep expecting my grandfather any day now.
peppered eggs: hard white, runny yellow.
creepy wide-eyed youngsters looping
four notes from some tv jingle
the entire afternoon.
the innocence in children's laughter
can be confused with a touch of evil.
at what age can a child detect deception
in a jack-o-lantern's smile
(and its relationship to autumn and the death
of things all in the wild)-
like the anticipation in the face of someone
whose just poisoned your wine,
saying "drink, drink" with their eyes
and making toasts to you.
when do children learn to expect
death when the leaves turn pretty colors?