What if
Petru Viljoen/Cheryl Penn
If I used that it would work but
I'd like to see
to see what's behind that
one there, over there,
and what
what would happen
if I opened it.
I opened
And paper windmills started
Burning.
Their ash scattered
As
Great winds from the north
Moved pre-breathed air
Into my space.
scraps of paper, written
here, written there
(whirling)
snatched at as it
flies by in
the age of information.
I choke on the
ooze of incomprehension
We get it
No we don’t
Or did we –
I just cant say.
Deep
in,
The
thinner thicket
thickened.
Words
called.
Branches
once laden
With
Librettos pleaded.
Scripts
being picked off
One
By
One.
By anyone
I tell you, I tell you
the scripts were picked off by anyone
one by one,
those branches were once laden
with a manner of speaking..
It told of this, of how
it was and it told
of that of why
it were
but now those branches
are barren.
Sparrow barren
Barren sparse spark.
Which is it to be?
I ask today, today today
What if
Today I spin out
of sync
With reality?
Locked in a litany of eulogies
My sun starts to set.
Panegyrics panic
Librettos’ laugh -
Did you ever see such a thing in your life
As three blind mice.
Not to talk of the farmers' wife -
The Queen of Spades is coming to tea.
Bloody Mary anyone?
Contrariness of Mary: a discussion.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Should we, or should we not?
That's the question!
In the meantime ...
The blind mice crept around
and found a quiet corner.
Just then was heard a great shout.
What about? What about?
The roar of the crowd quite
woke the three blind mice from
their restorative nap. And then
please note, ...
ladies and gentlemen!
Do you, or do you not
have a pen and paper?
Jim
elbowed Jane
dear, I taste a
tear
in my T
Sshhh
The jabberwocky sups.
Alice hands out papyrus
And quill
The mice wait.
The Queen of Spades
Digs
Into minds not her own
Seeking
She knows not what -
An Elusive
An Evanescent
An Ephemeral
A transitory moment
With which to complete her dinner.
What if, what if, indeed,
what if enigmatic
would do what has to be DONE?
A chestire smile spread
the ladies and the gentlemen
licked the tips of their quills
and decidedly dipped it in the ink.
Wide-eyed Alice wondered,
Jabberwocky ate long,
the mice quivered,
Jane elbowed Jim, write on!
Right on!
Grisaliously, the queen of spades
looked at the shades ...
Enigmatic Static
Rudimentary Pie
Would you like custard with that my dear?
Decided dips
Smacking lips
Elementary excavating by the Queen.
Ladies and Gentle
Men
I have an
Announce
Meant:
Would the owner of the
floating
Lost Ephemeral
Please remove it from my soup.
Then pass me the ècuelle
please, madame
since ephemera ain't
what you dig.
It may just maybe suit, just
the ecaudate mice
who will, in a trice,
lap up the soup.
It's their strength they're in sore need
to recoup.
The queen goes hungry
and it makes her angry
that she had to raid the pantry
herself.
Alice, Jim and Jane
aristocratic women, docile men
duly evidenced
echolalia
Eeish!
Jim scratched his head
Assaulted by stray
Echophemomenas and Echopraxias
In their pantry paltry escape.
The queeny now greedy
Of everything not hers
yelled in her aristocratic way -
I’m culling/annihilating/scrapping
The Elusive Ephemera.
A bellow from the corner
revealed
the lost page (229)
from Gibbons
Fall and Rise of the Roman Empire -
WHO’S FOR PUD???
ALL FALL INTO LINE!
What's for pud? I'd rather know
And I'm not standing alone in no line
for any either! What's this? A soup kitchen?
And Who's this queen anyway?
What's she got
or haven't and on about howling.
From Chicago to Paris
She has me Beat at that
hotel where there were almost
always
only minutes to go. Ephemera?
Some Londoners might mind you
know. When there are centuries
to read.
Jim! Alice wants her tea.
Please. Here and Now.
the shuffle of slapping slippers
along a winding corridor floor
a rabbit asleep in a far flung
corner.
Alice rubs tired eyes
awake from a weird -
DREEEM?
morning my dear says Mavis
large bosom
bustling with early
Bolshoi brevity
bursting from her copious chest-
Bread and milk my little Peach?
Mavis?!
thought Alice
where’s Jim?
Jim is in Chicago. He went on tip
toe.
Jane turned into a cROW, yet she'll be back in a
mo'
Mavis let the mILK flow
Alice went on a go sLOW
The mICE found a BurRough
the queen has the mad hatter in TOw. OW!
(Don't let her know
about Mavis!)
HOW contrary Don Quixote
that you fell in love
with the farmer's wife
while fighting windmills
all in a row.
It was an elastic day,
this
Aristotelian time of pure ethics.
Quixote brandished his
four causes to the wind,
digged Rocinanto in his
Plato place
and
sang his swam song.
The road was a ghostly
Galleon
Tossed upon cucumber and cheese
STOP! HALT!
the word police yelled -
FREEZE!
Oh PuhLeasE! To be compelled
thus in a manner of speech
is, indeed, most, MOST I note ...
SILENCE!!
Uh? Okay! But ... why?!
Sitting in the dock, -stretching time ...
... Plato's shadows on the wall -
ephemeral, hypnotic, inner thicket,
intrinsically reflecting extrensic;
then! - on the Night of the Moon ...
ladies were distressed.
The knighted men approached ...
OBJECTION!!
But your Honour!
What, we gently meant to say: WHAT if ...
SILENCE!!
Oh! WHY?!
Your HoNOur!
(I wish Ari would hurry on
his perambulatory wondering.)
Is this wrong? yOUR H(on)OUR?
A screech
Of brakes
Brought What If to
Verse Nineteen Honour-ish.
We need at this moment
to produce evidence in situ of
proximity to publishing
post modern posits on pretentious
commercial cultural clutter
OBJECTION!!
What twaddle
What twittering
What clattering claptrap!
Confusion reigned,
the Queen of hearts absconded
in a cloud of elegant peanut butter.
I'm never buying that Black Cat stuff again
what IF the queen ...
Jim! Jiiiim! Wake up!
Huh? Oh! Where ...? OH!
Jim?
Eyes rubbed clear of sleep
a mouse scurrelled, peeped
and was gone.
Wide eyed now, wondering
Jim looked at Jane
who was pondering.
Jim's incomprehension.
Like Jim,
The pudding was overripe
Incomprehension, born
a weathered tattoo
to most
who sip a nectar combo
(not on the Wimpy breakfast menu)
of blankness and perplexed saline sap.
Those deep within its grasp
do not hear
What If?
What if they awake
From the daze of bafflement
To LIVE a
What If Life.
What Then?
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