Imagine My Surprise

 

Imagine my surprise

when I noticed that your body beside me

was a cello

and when you snored,

the sound was the most beautiful thing

I had ever heard.

Hush now,

do not speak

or get up, standing stiffly on your one leg.

There is no ceremonial dance to be done.

Our people have all fluttered

away, a cloud of crows

or treble clefs

dotting the air like ellipsis points.

They seed the sky and make it rain

golden notes

glittering dreams

wild and giddy

like experimental harmonics.

You have my ear, darling.

Speak and be 

the instrument of my glorious undoing.

___________

for Word Garden Word List Chouette

Music: Sunny & the Sunliners Talk To Me

My Milieu

I found myself in a milieu.
Was this some kind of French gag?

All my stuff in a dumbshow around me.
Paraphernalia patting at invisible walls--
quelle stupide!

A standard poodle carrying a canoe on its back
became part of my milieu.
I fed it aphorisms as we set off downstream.

Eventually, after long exhausting effort,
the poodle and I arrived back at my milieu.
The poodle up and spake:

"Life is circular. The end is the beginning."
I brained it with a paddle to make it shut up,
then composed a letter of complaint.

So. Here is my milieu, with me in it,
holding my letter, 
openly weeping, 
hoping to impress you.
Have I failed? 
Or, is your heart a stone, part of its own milieu
where love languishes, calling out, dying,

Like an actress on stage 
with the plum role in Camille?
Elle est morte, and yet she lives on, superfluous.
________

for Day 2 of my 39 poems in 39 days.