We all laughed at the decomposing clown,
But later shame sunk upon us
And we got smashed on the balcony.

I had lost my left shoe in the blood.
The doyen and her ten attaches
Scattered blossom on the divans.

We were charmed by a famous puppy,
A dozen gold pins in her forehead;
A tendency to speak ill of the dead.

‘The dead are so stupid,’ she said.
An attache took me by the temples and ordered,
‘Look: that advertisement on the crevasse;

Notice the inverted commas around “crazy adventures”
Grow bigger than the words themselves,
Framing the very hills and the valleys.

Like that man by the fountain who changed his name to #:
But ask him why and he’ll say,
“You’ve got to stand out from the crowd, right?”

And other redundant platitudes.
Disappointment kicks you like an ostrich:
Bloody, sandy and hard.

In other news, we grow weary and suspicious—
And we’ll ask you to defend yourself
Using words we already hold to be meaningless.’

I lay back, bumping my head on the war.
Every solid object has been declared part of the war.
I saw the puppy flex her golden needles.

“You should talk to this guy,” I said, “he’s funny.”
“Talk to him?” she spat.
“I wouldn’t even eat his brain.”