1.
Upstairs, the television blasts its random exclamations, the news. The walls are still yellow. Utopia is cold. In winter coat, a raccoon vanishes into the treetops, and when the fire trucks arrive to fetch her she is missing in all the documents. She is absent in all the books. At a table in a coffee shop, a man drinks his happiness—blowfish tea in a black and white cup. The workers admire his indolence/spirit. He is old, he is ever, and his gravity’s a tree. A fire truck in winter coat. A vanishing blowfish into the books. He hits back his haywire car, which is singing. Dearly Polyphemus, all America in stitches, this last ditch effort to comply with your requests turns its white head to the campfire bristling. No more amusements, the mystery goes missing. The raccoon returns to her coffee on the rocks. In the old man’s novel, the main character’s a Cyclops, hiding in the orange groves and freezing.
2.
The walls are still yellow. In a corner, I am writing myself into. Myself, an old man, a Cyclops, a raccoon. I set fire to my face on fire, which is stealing. In a coffee shop whenever, with spirit, I am blasting Utopia and laughing on TV. Dear, Todd Rundgren, Hello, it’s me. So much astonishes the rabbit that astonishment is endless and forever in her presence. I keep falling into sonnets whether I like them or not. I don’t. And neither does the Cyclops, who is singing a very old and epic little car. Around the campfire the cowboys play their guitars, eating baked beans and vanishing a blowfish, as the indolent/ inspirited red workers’ party rallies. He is old, but they elect him, Polyphemus! It’s written here in black and white in a corner. The oranges. Guillaume Apollinaire. I can already see my breath analysis. Unfortunately, the Sirens. And after the beep, you can leave the amusements a message. Return to Revelations, the novelist is bristling. I’m coughing up syrup and apostrophe.
3.
Dear Odysseus, Hello, it’s me. You are old and you are ever. In a coffee shop, at a table, a rabbit is writing himself into the corner of a novel called Utopia. His main character, an old man named Treetop, wants to vanish into happiness, but finds doing so so mysterious that he writes to Todd Rundgren a series of serious questions. But hidden as they are among the sirens and raccoons and blowfish of America, the rock-n-roll answers never reach to the heavens. Still, the still walls are yellow. As an author, the rabbit dreams up various scenarios, each one leading to a finish in the fire. In winter coat, I am working at playing the guitar like a racehorse, the Sirens and Muses on the roof barely singing. Then Treetop goes for a walk in the city and finds there a bicycle and takes it, called stealing. It is orange or it is freezing, writes the Cyclops, Apollinaire. And by “it” we mean it all this moment. Astonishing fire truck. Astonishing books. After the beep feel free to leave a message. Like it or not, it’s an epic little system. Sincerely, I miss you on a tangent.
Matt Hart is the author of the poetry collections Who's Who Vivid (Slope Editions, 2006) and YOU ARE MIST (MOOR Books, forthcoming), as well as several chapbooks, including most recently, Deafening Leafening (Pilot Books, 2009), which he wrote in collaboration with Ethan Paquin. He lives in Cincinnati where he edits Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety.