old poem

[The Good Ole Ant]

The Eight Cylinders

Early dawn rose over the mighty Lake Oswego
And swimming a lap around its surface was a young virago
Christened with the lovely name Chirico

The petite lass, close to having aged twelve years,
Stepped onto the dock covered in salt-water tears
Dripping out of her silk-tinged ears

As she waltzed into the vicinity of her grandparents' holiday home,
She noticed a rather large package addressed to her by her father Noam
Sitting on the oven of brightest chrome

She rushed into the kitchen at fastest pace
To have an image of the yellow cubical case
Thrust forward into her glowing face

The card read in bold:
"To you Chirico, my sweet,
I present this gift.

Inside this package
Are eight cylinders of steel
I received in Greece.

They are not ordinary,
For they are looking glasses
Into the unknown.

These steel beauties
Can give you a peer into
Other dimensions!

I pray this magic
Can make some atonement to
You for my absence.

                  Love,
                     Your Father Noam"

Chirico hastily tore the ribbons and paper wrapping off
Of the gigantic package and with a lunge and a cough
Took the cylinders from the troth

With quickest of pace,
She peered with one eye into
The first cylinder
In the first cylinder,
A technicolor mushroom civilization
Thrives as the rodent villagers
Celebrate under rains of fireflies
And swallows carry glowing lanterns
Filled with blue flames
Across the skies protected
By stone canine giants.

In the second cylinder,
Temples ruined and eroded
Litter the sands of a purple desert
Under skies of red and black ink blots
Upon a canary yellow canvas.
The only living creatures extant
In this nightmare of a wasteland
Are paper cutouts resembling men
Made of thunderbolts
With skins covered by dotted lines
And geometric sketches
Much like used graphing paper.

In the third cylinder,
A Victorian city teems with urban wildlife
As the townspeople traverse the walkways
Alongside horse-driven buggies
Upon the muddy roads.
The rusted buildings sporting
Intricate abstract patterns tower high
Juxtaposed below gray skies of murky clouds.
The children adorning clad knickers
And tattered vests of dull hues of brown
Shoot marbles in the back alleys
While their parents trek
About the marketplace for groceries.

In the fourth cylinder,
A concrete room with four walls
Lies dormant in darkness
As creepy crawlies sprint about.
Spiders with V8 engine skulls
Emit bloody mist through
Chrome tinted pipes
And sparrows made of bone marrow
From the skeletons of dead sea mammals
Sip from the blood stream
Of a raccoon mutated by
Pop culture and liquid tri-ethanol
In the fifth cylinder,
Musical sheets coat the surroundings
As musical notes waltz and tango
In synchronized shifts of twelves
With instruments melting from
The heat of intricate performance
And a tiny, aged, mustached man
In a black suit conducting everything
With the tip of his wand.
The music made resonates
Louder than love
And louder than reason.

In the sixth cylinder,
Trombones sound to the growl
Of a grizzly bear gone rap star
Singing about cars evaporating
With socialist chants from valley girls
Cracking the glass of God's hairline
Open with a hammer made of
Broken dreams courtesy of Coca Cola.
Eyeballs bleed mother's milk
To feed the flying fish breeding
A new cure for American selflessness
For the gorillas in the business
To mass market for all.

In the seventh cylinder,
Pitch darkness
Visual nothingness at rawest level
Only black.
Cries of dying children
Are all to be heard
And frankly all to be known.

In the eighth and final cylinder,
Early dawn rose over the mighty Lake Oswego
And swimming a lap around its surface was a young virago
Christened with the lovely name Chirico.