Christopher Mulrooney

the dreamboat drivers


parcel the term

the Debussy played
on the stage
echo'd in the wings

dark unwindowed
olfactory with the past
achieved at last

and it was gone
in the sound of hands
muffled for the nonce

mohair and asbestos
hanging from the flies
and a single light

what is there from the left
and right but the green glow
of exit signs if anything











tour de force

flambéed lamb chops on the majolica ware
with the best sauce money can buy
in the traps set for a million dollars
in the bank outside the fountains of Bernini

silently the purposes filter out the stream
of words spoken up and written out the
poker-players ramble out to the hill and scream
as loudly as it may be with the chips in their ears

clip me out their coupons who ran the valued trade
on their marts under klaxons in an air-raid
the newsboys buzz the empty town at night
policemen follow the stream of traffic on the quiet

you can sleep now the discourse is done the lamp out
let the cat be born under the wheels of the juggernaut
and the frantic ply the nightwinds for a dream of day
you can suppose it is here the street and all its candied apples











Mauritshuis

I have an idea
of the Alpes-Maritimes
steaming at the height of summer
you have long indeed been long and far away
no you nestled in with comic books
for convalescence
it did not trepan your pons asinorum
enough perhaps to do the job

God willing there is a fount
where horses blow their nostrils
clear as bay windows
on the greensward
you have happenstance if your side
aches laughing to thank
and bow down
to your knees











take-off

this is only have a dream
the winking of oilily sanctioned men
who have no reasons for what they do
or did do

palmetto bugs big as your thumb
kissed quickly
for the fount of faith

the cucumber gardener hemm'd and
haw'd in his turnip lots
all shall be and if not
why not then
why

if scruples in Shannon could have told the tale
we'd all be at the airport now with mugs of ale











limitless imaginations

what do you have we suppose
that's worth may have a tinker's dam
there she is on the footsteps of the morning
lighting her fires
of dull indignation

rataplan goes the tiny set of hammers
the saw electric upon the flowers
the ivy trimmed to nothingness
the appliances that spit back at you
you the Jew
counting the rhymes
that do not pay











for the Tory

how I would like to build
says the eminent guest speaker
a long bold build of castaway nets
to fright my balls
into their holes

in the proper event
of the day
I reek and my manuals
are very dry stuff











the radio broadcasts

ah hear ye hear ye once and for all
and free speech is the
chiefest of sprees
woe unto ye attend to us all whatsoever

the mind is like cheddar cheese
ripening under a leaf
in the cabbage patch
beside a rabbit munching vigorously
all day and night











the prestidigitator's wand

in a top hat
I break your pate
out a cuckoo transpires

with my wand
in my hand
the hot sun stops and glares











apple of my eye

what word is this preaching the gospel
on a streetcorner with a megaphone
stand down the staircase that I may walk upon you
is all there is to what he is saying

like the shopman shouting his wares
from an open door











lascivious things

these try my patience says my lady
furiously vacuuming the rug
I gather all my memory in a basketful
and shoo it out my window
let it fall as the tender rain
on any below











here is the picture

I have cut off from me say it you
the hausfrau and the bitter seed
let it gibber in a Bath chair
I'll pass codes allowing it a way up
the silken ladder from gutter to kerb











this is the station

this is the station
fixed in advance
all who alight here
do not by chance

what comes and goes
in and out
does so haphazard
in a pig's snout

that snuffles the baggage
and writes home again
with the pen in its lips
for more and more men











end of the line

rubber baby buggy bumper
with a red light

if I die before I wake
and the great nothing here daily

only the rapscallions
dreamily making mincemeat
of Giotto's O