(Note: In 1840, Sir Thomas Browne’s skull was removed from the St. Peter Mancroft Church in Norwich when his coffin was “accidentally” disturbed by workmen. The skull wasn’t returned to lie with the rest of Browne’s earthly remains until 1922. In addition to writing “Religio Medici,” “Urne-Buriall” and “Pseudodoxia Epidemica,” the 17th century physician and essayist is credited with coining dozens of words including medical, hallucination, electricity, exhaustion coma, ulterior and therapeutic.)
#6: Ulterior
collating bones
& books
in a quincunx
of exhibition halls featuring
such Audio Tour favorites as
Batrachomyomachia,
or the Homerican Battel between Frogs and Mice
& Pytheas Beyond Ultima Thule—
where’s your ticket Mr. Bones
says the guard
but then it’s gone
all gone, the art & artifacts
the impossible objects, forgotten
footnoted
the map of Musaeum Clausum
drawn in phantom vistas
unsealed
from my back-
& windswept
across phosphate floors
#7: Therapeutic
Whenever I feel blue
I think of your body
hanging from morning
till 4 in the afternoon
& the 20-foot pike
on the roof of Westminster Hall
your head, Cromwell, lollypopping
in the English breeze
Noir Set Piece
bean shooter
four-flusher
last drag of a smoldering gasper
elephant ears heeled, rodded
goons
in a blind alley
only the moon
winks
lead
squirt, dut
dut
dut
brrrrrt
zzzzz, dut dut
zotzed………
night locked
in a cage
of rain
watching
from a diner
across the street
a waitress
with amnesia
wakes
up
recoiling
at the greedy touch
of hot plates
Jack
falls
from
an
open
valise
All-Inclusive
but
the room
key is lost
same
can’t be said
for our baggage
the lobby’s
caged birds bicker
& shriek
the sea
is just beyond
the balcony
we can’t see it
despite the king
with partial view
you buy a new
bathing suit,
killing time
I look
at the terrible
golden emptiness
irradiating
from the hotel’s
paintings