My mind got to ramblin’, like a wild geese
From the west
Devil Got My Woman, Skip James
Napping with a book on his lap,
Mr Honk dreamed of the shirorekha
over the Diabelli Variations, played
as if Delta blues had been invented
on the Danube—even pure sour grapes
couldn’t bring anyone past the cognitive
dissonance—only to find upon waking
a suitable name for his only invention:
Kalidīpāsana.
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Although a treasure trove of words,
Mr Honk only ever said a few
on any one occasion, as if preparing
for a quiet life in a discreet garret
or in a but and ben on the cliffs
were as important as avoiding the perceived
embarrassment of mentioning toasts
in Towcester.
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Too late to invent Modigliani
or write the Les Berceaux,
Mr Honk settled for vignettes
on the inherent insettleabilititude
of a whim: Isn’t that what
the intentionally blank pages
are for?
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As a nocturnal breed,
Mr Honk never fully adapted
to his condition, but even he knew
that the parchment nomads,
like hidden pilcrows,
favour serene moonbaths
under the waned crescent
once all the trinkets of the day
finally run their course
and even the turntable
can’t outshout the chorus
of aspiring seagulls.
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Undecided
between the Metamorphoses,
the Pentateuch, and the Puranas,
Mr Honk pondered the reason
for his existence.
But whether it was divine
indifference, human boredom,
or generative model
hallucinations, he knew
he was nothing but
a by-product.
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With the linden tree within reach,
if it weren’t for the glass,
Mr Honk appreciated the humility
of sitting by the window,
where he could read in peace,
stretched out on a folding garden chair—
a rather unusual piece of furniture
for a living room—
and even the sun rays, here and there
breaking through the branches,
were not too intrusive,
but he would never have admitted
that he was actually looking forward
to the arrival of July, so that he could fill
the marginalia with linden blossoms
and bumblebees buzzing amongst
the words.
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The thunderstorm season, with its usual titillations
and occasional remarks on lost virginity, had begun
with a rumbling on the windowsill and a heavenly groan
that woke him in the morning to a fundamental question:
Can one read the Great Romantics in sweatpants
or the Modernists in a tailcoat? Apparently,
even atheists like Mr Honk have their grave Sunday
dilemmas.
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With a touch of disbelief,
Mr Honk listened
to a Gershwin-in-black-and-white,
a fidgeted-with idiosyncrasy
spiced up with corduroy—
the poor man’s velvet—
on the presenescent
intellectual’s back.
So there it was: incident,
emotion, crisis, suspense, climax,
dénouement, and conclusion,
all in the first four minutes.
No wonder the rest of the film
turned soporific.
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Like the dandelions and linden flowers,
Mr Honk was used to being seated below the salt;
in fact, he preferred the less exposed accommodation—
though still in the vicinity of the sangfroid suavity of people
of intellect, individuals of all genders and none—
where he could freely nibble the refined exchange
of Latin binomials between Equus monocerus
and Musca domestica.
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hidden pilcrow 