Tony the Tiger

(The following was written in October; it's one of the favourite things I've written, although it is unforgivably lengthy. As always with this blog, read out loud for maximum effect.)


Tony the Tiger

Pucks and sticks and pickup bricks. Licks and phones and caked-on bones, but drains swill lever curtly. Round tree vagabonds and the night of friable onions. Lost in the day’s ending, away from the time of men, wheezing and sneezing causes pollution of the mind soul body and loins; verbosity and pomposity go hand in hand. Here we dance and away we tuck the little tykes and the bed phones mothers use to check on their infants, those are out of batteries I’m afraid. Can the drinking continue? Can the weather change for the better? Will the waste come back to kill him? The negative and lovely positive, flower grass and sails, half-mast, blow down wind, cut away at the galley.

The cutlass and the sabre, rattle in the naval, the harbour, men born with no navels, the ocean that time forgot… and so it goes unto nigh, never-ending and always bending, lectures of Aristotelian nomenclature, and getting to know the properties of things. And speaking of knaves, Plato’s in his cave, and Socrates is drunk again—time to drag out the vote, the fool Athens gadfly. Though to Delphi he’s wise, it’s the council has spoken, and he really must die. Executed. Tis a shame: he’s a good chap deep down, in spite of his lies.

Oh my brain, with its plasticine furrows and squirreling burrows. A rat and a mouse tucked away in my house, so we talked of our lives in the four-legged joust. Rodents digging and chewing and hiding, from trouble brewing and the pouncing--of the cat in the maze who had seen better days. A dog on the fence pants; blowin’ in the wind is a papyrus bone, artifact of Egypt or a mummified tome. So he chases his tail, befriends a few snails, in cavernous jails out under a rock, unaware of the clock and the one woollen sock. The dog did advise him ‘beware of the salt and the kids with their shoes.’ But he boozes, confuses; he tries but he loses. A snail that’s crushed—it’s sticky and oozes, texture of mucus, it resembles what glue is. And though I love symphony I’m a mango off a fruit tree. A fool who jabbers. A nation that clobbers, a toddler who stammers will one day become a failed young writer, a typing machine, a reporter with dreams. Take down good notes, I’m afraid you’ll elope; we try not to touch, we are frogs and we croak.

Wither spoons, and where are the forks? Annoying the clown is a kid with a cork. Have you unstopped the wine? It goes rancid and sweet, drunk by the elite; municipal taxpayers vote with their feet. A cold cup of beer and a dog can’t be beat. I flavour my soup with red pepper jelly, an anonymous tip-toe to town hall and Eddies—that’s Shack and the Eagle, hockey game beagles. (The currents of power with toasts of the town. Whether mayo or mustard, the sandwich goes down.) Afar and beyond the men with their togas, or an Indian’s claim about yogurt and yogas. A rose from the butler would never debase you, I said to the receptionist crossing the stairs. She swore and she chuckled, and she pulled out her hair.

A dragonfly gnome can toss around foam, but so can mechanics with urethane blends, or a sweet song from Sloan—The Lines We Amend. A chased shooter with lime, stuffed cupboards of thyme. Unpack the washcloths and figure a rhyme. Eaten and tasted, arrive all thin-waisted, you’re drained from your travel in a nation lambasted. Inundation, props and paper, or a woman from Gander, a political snitch and a fresh gerrymander. Have you ever observed so many wrong curves, faulty strokes of the palette, this fog dressed as Zen? Derivative drivel and a pantry of shelves, will the gnome and his foam ever sleep with the elves? Or even with men? A racial divide or elision collides. Eyes of a squid, a giant with lids—the size of a legion, it’s his left carotid. The French coast off the Atlantic or an even derision. I tried to outswim him but he hates long division, so I fed the remainder to math books and wolves. The victims burn incense, the stench will melt roads. Decisions, delays, false sonnets and odes. Crumble and tumble, infrastructure erodes.

Power blockage angers the electorate. Tone down the rhetoric and try not to fake it. McGuinty and Eves, they watch from the trees, flip-flopping again like the wind and the leaves. Don’t stain your clothes from the dying of colours. Voters aren’t stupid—they’re not like your brother. Frowning’s a lion, some frugal inveterate, a rabbi of Zion, a bully for temperance. A zealot can block the Quebecois talk, but smoke’s not enough for the walkers in chalk. Laboratory assistants are shaving their whiskers (and now rumour has it they don’t clean their beakers); outsourcing to minions, the chemistry majors, alone with their burners, zinc-sniffing with neighbours. Jim Henson’s a muppet, it’s true he ain’t swift. Jonathan or Gulliver—down by the station, a string quartet nation, all up in elation ‘bout this B.C. conflagration—it’s a clear indication: we all need a lift.

Flaubert and the Madame, the changing of seasons. Feminism unleashed with a thousand good reasons. But now ladies—you believe this?—they most miss their manners, confounding the alders, the right-thinking town planners. A new bathroom was devised, with equity in mind and tradition revised—but the women are reneging the teeth they excised. And all around here there is lust in the air; the young ones walk naked and their mothers don’t care. Beatify Mary, an immaculate virgin; fish for disciples in a lake full of sturgeon. Go ahead, I don’t care, I’m a roundabout Charlie; there’s just one way to skin me or ride on my Harley. Call up and ask for the lazy tromboner, or the urbanite poet on the path toward stoner. Call me, I’ll answer, I got the afternoon off. Stick your thumb down my throat; I promise I’ll cough.