Shimmering Lucifers

Four square monks drive a Coupe de Ville
Through the vale, over the hill
 
To get to where the savings are,
They square their shoulders and point the car
 
They bang their heads when the radio blares
That song about the lady who bought the stairs
 
And the dandy in back swirls down the chrome handle
To cast weird sun on his pilgrim sandal
 
Where tokens once slurried to a buttercup Hajj
What now? O shimmering mercantile Alcatraz!
 
Mobius ministries fringe the haze
Of toothbrush choirs in a Yangtze glaze
 
Foaming in pollens of this lobotomized valley
Ever since Yankee Candle broke up Bee’s Alley
 
Where skanking confederates
Did trail natty satins, debt
 
Free, and Sanity herself
(Now a scent, top-shelf)
 
Administered to gutter pirate queens
Mini homecomings woven on the cosmic screen
 
And whispered in a turtle’s ear,
Kid monk you dream, it was the beer
 
You vowed to brew
Just like the thread will lose its screw
 
Just like the brain will shed its wrinkles,
Diverting shipwreck’s periwinkles
 
To be reborn in a lonely place,
Truth’s best conducted by an unclaimed face

Copyright Credit: Julien Poirier, "Shimmering Lucifers" from Out of Print.  Copyright © 2016 by Julien Poirier.  Reprinted by permission of City Lights Books.
 
Source: Out of Print (City Lights Books, 2016)