ZAN DE PARRY
NOKOMIS
We went to eat at a restaurant
And were a bit shocked by the quality
For example, the prawn cocktail
Was not cooked at all
There was the hummus
Rather like tomato soup
Served with arroz con culo
And an appetizer of ikiri-zushi, a fillet
With an ice cream top
A few glasses of red wine did not
Quiet the rumors
And on the gravel, in the lot
Children were setting fire
To a box of live crabs
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from HOMIE GOES SLEEP AT SUNSET
“I about to give birth, my friend.” Male vampires pantomime a basketball game. Beloved dog telling people what to do.
Man at a public speaking class in a three-piece suit. A child giving the finger to a road block. The hitchhiker’s curse on all mechanics.
Burning football stadium poster: CHEER FOR WHATEVER MAN’S THERE. Engorged boar in a train station.
“My parents get very, very depressed on my birthday.” A shepherdess meditating in front of a classroom. A businessman delivering a speech in the wilderness.
Ben and Jerry’s “tart panic” ice cream. Elvis Costello remembering St. Crispin’s Day. The pink bird of Damascus.
Nino Ferrer collapses and dies. Journalists collapse with him. Father and child carry home an exhausted stork from the playfield.
Love gets a man elected. European women checking out an American city. Saint John the Divine’s Annunciation Chapel collapsing.
Global temperature dropping below threshold. Angela Merkel driving on a wet road. Beneath Mt. Washington, neanderthals in a queue.
A subversion of The Sound of Music. It’s only the beginning of the Christian Era. All people walk into the bushes at once.
A door appears on a beach. A machine leans into a man to mock him. Young couple goes camping and doesn’t have sex.
A dog falls in love with a pile of manure. Rent a wheelchair-bound war hero. Bathroom attendant reads the dictionary.
Dad talking on the phone at the dinner table. A boy in his room, working on an engine. An old man coming out of the club.
Two girls dancing in a field, three fat men sitting in the distance. Hippies peep through the teepee hatch.
Second face painting at the baseball game. Woman feeding a plant. A runner being dragged down the sidewalk by an invisible hook.
A newborn’s hand wrapped around a churro. “The Fog is Heavy”.
Dish soap doing man’s laundry. “I have discovered how to make perfect food.”
Cowboys on a trip to the steak museum. A group of five men waiting in line for Hot Mulled Teas. Council laughs at historic neighborhoods.
Rainmen pay taxes. A tear in time, an art school bypass. Robert Mitchum sees his face on the label of some rotgut rum.
Truffle drips from the winner’s lips as the urn opens. “Let’s hear it for the porn poets.” God in a truck eating raw meat.
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Zan de Parry now lives in Michigan.