The REM in Theremin 

Abandon a band on a bra, cad.
A bra abracadabra a la presto
Redacted a lap, restored, acted
The REM in theremin awe
At her aweather
Lingerie linger, i.e.
A nun strapped
A nun’s trapped
An unstrapped
Abatement.

O, abate men to Cadillac cad;
I’ll, acme me, wax you waxy.

Ouija board, I jab oar
Dalliances’ alliance, sculled culled
Prognostic pro gnostic revelations revel at.

I, onshore horehound, hound
As underwearing asunder,
We a ring for mat form
At bust our bus tour pleasure.

Plea, sure, begin
Beg in gin fizz-led
Fizzled case, mate
Casemate ram parts
Ramparts for tresses fortresses.

But tresses buttresses, carefree, care
Free the me theme bra in brain
Together to get her the REM in theremin
A band on abandon, spell b-o-u-n-d spellbound.

*

Amiss, a miss adumbrated
A dumb rated aga in Asia.

Again as I, a liturgist, lit
Ur gist polemics, pole mics’
Antipathetic mass creeds.

Anti-pa thetic, ma’s screeds
Against aga in staid aid
Istanbul rushes.

Is tan bulrushes’ taint stain
Tantamount ant a mount
To urn eyed tourneyed
Hadj ousting?

Had jousting for mic formic acid
A Cid ant agonist atagonist awe?

Some awe’s omelet let egg
Headstones, egghead’s tones
Anear an ear feed back aversion.

Feedback:  A version
The REM theremin sonata son
At a bombardon tuba, leveraged.

Bombard on?  Tubal Eve
Raged or a to Rio oratorio
Orchestrated or chest rated.

Mushroomed mush roomed,
Or chard’s orchards orbit
Or bit or ate orated in din ordeals.

Or deals, the or-ist theorist
Therein order by or ally
Imposed the rein or derby.

Orally, I’m posed at testing attesting
An us anus a trophy ordure
SS atrophy duress imp roved.

Improved, the or-ist theorist or a Tory oratory
Avers a vers rumor, rum or
Fur or furor, tail or tailor prose cut or
Prosecutor bargains.

Bar gains increased orange lair
In creased or angel air pantheistic
Pant heist icicling.

I cling or a pro nob is ora pro nobis
A stigma tic pin keyed
Astigmatic, pink-eyed,
Peers into peer sin to me.

At pieties’ meat pie tie,
Sex changes exchanges transact.

Ex-changes, trans act along
A long drag show primadonna
Drags how prim a donna can-can can
Can humor hum or
Legitimate leg.

It I mate:
Meteor mete or measure
Me a sure theorist
The or-ist rat, I, fied ratified.

*

The sis thesis
Parenthesis parent (he)
Sis denounces.
Den ounces of fish (offish odor)
OD or underpants
Hamper fumes
Under pant sham perfumes infuse
In fuse bomb as tic
Bombastic his to id
Histoid thesis.

Metastatic, the sis met
A static, pathetic pa.

The tic he (manicured he-man, I)
Cured via led vialed anticipation antic.

I (pat I)
On my co-logical mycological support
Sup (Port, Stilton)
Stilt on wavering wave
Ringling Brothers ling broth
Ersatz at zany anybody’s bodyshop repairs.

Rep airs farther fart her (fat her)
Father parent (he, tic ally)
Parenthetically remarks.

REM arks awake a wake
Dish on or dishonor his Tory history.

Euphorically Waxing and Waning a Myth

Facetiously serious, we bought the American Dream.  Everything was here, ready-made for the taking.  But it wasn’t about conquest:  that came earlier, and even if we could metaphorically apply the terminology of conquest to the everyday life of driving to work, parking, picking the right line at the bank, and so on, we weren’t slaughtering anyone.  We got all we needed and more, and if life wasn’t exactly easy, it wasn’t awfully difficult, either.  We had antibiotics and anesthetic.  We ate and drank well, with a remote effort and deferred responsibility that never threatened to belabor us with the practical complications and ethical implications of what it took to put viands and flagons on the table.  After all, weren’t we constitutionally entitled to the pursuit of happiness?  Bounty was our destiny, lack was anathema, and even the slightest attrition of the amalgamation of rights, privileges, and pleasures we enjoyed, from the rankest hedonisms to the most ethereal conceits, would have only amused us, as if the likelihood of loss were no more realistic than a theory posed as a myth by some moon-brained fop waxing and waning euphorically.

Obliquely then, something went wrong, like when the sound in your stereo isn’t quite stereophonic, even if neither woofer nor tweeter is out of order.  But we didn’t worry, since we still were pretty well fixed.  To stretch the stereo notion, let’s pretend it’s the stereo in your Chevrolet—or, since we’re pretending, your Thunderbird convertible—so while Roy Orbison belts out “Only the Lonely,” hitting the E over high C like nobody else, there’s some hiss or fizzy buzz to the timbre, something you try fiddling with by turning it down or tuning it in better, but nothing works, so you ignore it, put it completely out of your mind while you think about the breeze, the trip, the hot yet cooling influence of the sun filtered by movement.  This movement then diverts, veering you off in the reverie of the moment which you just know will never end serendipitously.

Fictitiously it’s O.K., but in truth it’s not O.K.  With or without Roy singing his hits to your own living myth, his hymns of wild youth, of drinking Schlitz or Coors or Bud (but no Dom, Mumm, or Krug), of shooting moons or mooning goons.  Now it’s obviously not hunky-dory.  If hissing or fuzzy, it’s missing its good old oomph, too—not just bogus bonus fluff.  Your T-bird still rolls out in styling, top-down fury, but limits shut off much of how it is, so no bounty of whimsy could distinguish it to mimick how much fun is lost ominously.

Buoy gongs soon sound our doom.  No doubt about how our old, soft, cushy, plush lot got sold or run down, sunk by luck.  Dumb luck got us our boon, though.  Who knows how low our stock would or could bottom out?  Our crowd broods, mourns, howls.  Our poor dogs growl.  No busboy lunch dump food for my dog or my own gut.  God fucks us hourly.

Ugly ruckus grunts snuff up crumbs.  Bug phylum lugs slurp syrup syrum by tuns, curry fury, slug muck.  Bluntly my myth purrs unsung fuck-ups.  Drunk pluck sucks my crummy bucks’ hump dry.  Grumpy slum bums bum suds my bucks buy.

Fly-by-sky syzygy hymns dry my sty.  Spry lynx pygmy gym nymphs shyly tryst, wryly ply my myrrh.  Why cry?  Styx crypt glyphs lynch hymns, fry cysts, gyp my myth.