THE CATERPILLAR CARNIVAL

Cerebral as a caterpillar
raised upon the wings of a nuclear express:
Who would have thought that you could run so far
without a songbird crawling
from the jungle of your mind?
I had run the paceswith a sword of crinoline
and had sucked upon the nightmares of desire,
but my sorry dreams were dancing backwards
while I sewed a strange earthquake
into the fabric of your brain.
Its curls were finished
and its sea monkeys were
making love
to a squirrel-faced clown
whose ruffled collar
was infused with the wines of Arabia,
the magical grapes of a desert wind
that howled through the soul
of a jack-o-lantern.
It was a day for dancing, thinking, reeling,
peeling back the veils of morality
to gaze upon the undulating flesh
that knew the cryptic password
to the ever-open loins:
"Ham, the imp coos and hits;
all imps act so..."
And with this cry a carnival erupts
into the skin
and dances over valleys
of exquisite joy
bursting the cocoon of limitations
to fly into a liquid sun
that drips inebriating nectar
into the silver cunt of the moon.