Christopher Mulrooney
Los Angeles, Calif. 90004
christophermulrooney@yahoo.com
Christopher Mulrooney is the author of toy balloons (Another New Calligraphy) and Rimbaud (Finishing Line Press)
His work has
recently appeared in
Law of the Jungle, Three And A Half
Point 9, Zoomoozophone
Review, Poetry
Ireland Review, Communion,
and Tipsy
Lit.
a broad mind
a flirtation with a pen and ink stand
at the back of the mind a flowing
gently O sweet Afton
but in the event dryasdust
recalcitrance
stir the pot stir the pot what comes
out
but a wretched blot for you to
decipher
rapscallion
angels
of the mind better view of the city view
out the
square windows rectangular glass ovals
circular
like portholes the fisheye lens
preëminence
receding on all hands
the
ship receding or prow a pinnacle stern less a pinpoint diamond in the
industrial view
and
that’s what I was coming to the golden apples in the palm of a bangled
hand
the
rare presbytery the tangled sheep on the meadows
alpacas
llamas you know the ropes the fair city above the clouds
at the
river’s edge vaunting the sea and so forth
in the
middle of the great plain yet not of it
the
swear grounds and high minarets of the golf courses magnanimous and
miniature
the
customs and rituals of the place surmounted by a bullying gang
so the
dream restored to fiction fades alas away
they
say in the samba centers what do they say
they
say discovered in the quondam jungles are lost cities
they
say men of other planets built them and will return
to
judge the progress of their development
they
say this jokingly as men from universities explore
the
rich cunningly fabricated exploits of the jungle
that
rainy wood you read about in the schools
a toadstool memory
the brilliant escapades they write of
scribes and salamanders of the press
white-hot from the hellbox printing
tens of thousands of copies a minute
in buckling prose that scatters to
the devils
or well-constructed stands pristine
unguarded
unattended unprized in silence
admired or not
it
was the ball-and-cup game
we
had played as our tormentors
allowed
us between lays
of
the minstrelwork we had mastered
one
after another o singing in him her
melody
sat as one who had said
in
a memory prat
ha
that sort of thing
we'd
ill meant to have packaged these
butcher's
scraps as dog meat
for
the stanchions of the great
but
it had worked just this way
at
least I had remembered this well
whereas the reception was who'd have thunk it?
parsimonious
as they were
in
them there days
they
uncorked the flask of hard-earned store-bought oil
virgin
not extra
and
lavished it upon the waves
for
our benefit
we
the wearying passengers
and freight
bonerattling
unto the junkyard
at
the request of the same scuttling
boneyard
merchants who wheeled
demolition
refuse into the park
to
exalt the valley
into
a dripping heap of gas
to
make electricity with
all
under the guise of recreation
to
help stop the cruisers
furiously
circumambulating
and
clogging the roads and trails with
happy
crumbums
half
the roads were closed
fountains
and springs
turned
off
the
plantations were by the board
gleaning
the last sheaves of
the
nostalgic past
as
tourism by the cartload
in
the cultural center
great
shopping arcades were built
to
fend off the city
no
new roads were built
the
vomitoria choked
whatever
the wastrels
lingered
in my city
remained
the
piebald angler
gives me the fisheye
followed
once
each time only
and
the circus however rebels
at
each thought hard
taken
rapidly
spoken
my dears look over
my
shoulder at my hair
it's
still there isn't there
my
dears anything does
the
royal subject like
like
a bowl of jelly
aie
she was
a sad thing
down
wantons down
partially
for as long as such shall live
I
forgive for there were such still longueurs in that stall time
frugging
at the cantina all day long and in the night bouncing off along the walls
oh it's a grand life
the serinette and the lightning-rod
I had flown in on a dare
to his own house I went
a cub reporter
that’s what I own like 6 T-shirts
and a bag of milk chocolates
but no-one else could
we got along just fine
he served the soup out of my tureen
I mean the one we had grown up with
all the time
his favorite saying was
I’ll be peckered
his favorite thing was an antique
serinette
he had rigged up with
electricity from a lightning-rod
he spoke about conductivity
lots of materials he said
just can’t stand up to my action
I started in the business he said
twenty years ago I had
lots of people working for me
you couldn’t imagine what it was like
a sterile litigious environment
all day long the claims were coming in
I had to stamp each one
with purple ink
anyway you had to
had to get up the stairs
and go to the roof to put the thing up
and run the connectors right the way down
to the bottom
it was a similitude of something
yeah
now though when there’s a storm
I have bird music
the house had varying instruments
and pictures
we had soup for about an hour
and then he listened to his serinette
warble in the lightning
I was glad I wasn’t going to fly
again until tomorrow
concourse
the security lights glow pumpkin
all night long upon the mangled chainlink fence
the walls have been repainted too many times
the painted wrought iron is new
and so is the razorwire
and so is the seismic retrofit
but there is the old brick
and the satellite dish
in a sea of bathroom tiles
Honeywell
the adolescent’s bouncing knee
whose chum looks like his mother
the trim of stainless steel secured
with Scotch tape
and the euphemistic thermostat labeled
energy management
he resembles his father at boot camp
the elder nun is silent as the younger
slaps her cup on the bottom to get it all
Mom ‘n Pop
to whom all there is
represents an order
and an insurgent order
stare with eager disregard
a glance askant betrays
the retro couple
sorority girl
home on a couple of mules
she commands respect in public situations
by placing her bag on the counter with a thump
then fishing out her purse
then closing it with a clink
then ruffling out her hair
then fingering her face
then fiddling with some objects on display
then turning around to speak her native tongue
to her mother
San Francisco de Assisi
Lord hear these bells those chapel bells
swaying and swinging
pre-recorded for dissemination
throughout the whole neighborhood
of a Sunday
if you hear them
if you hear those
chapel bells
ringing of a Sunday
swaying and swinging
with a slight buzz of distortion
electronic
have mercy on us
have mercy on us
give us peace