No Returns
Notty Bumbo, 2023
In this one a whippoorwill vanishes,
the ghost of Tennessee Earnie Ford
searches for its voice,
an awkward pause causing another senseless war.
Eventually, each issue resolves,
or branches off following unaligned trajectories,
creates clones to monitor clones of other clones.
you get dizzy just thinking about it.
Like when my grandfather showed us the money tree:
too mystified to figure it out,
but years later a chance glance at a tree of moderate size
reveals the truth, and I still can’t stop laughing.
Perhaps I can end the war with memories improperly tuned,
accompanied by a score that fails to resolve,
smuggled off by a wayward string section,
hoping for free passage to Copenhagen.
Is this how all difficult decisions come to their senses?
a falling body caught in the grip of minor poet,
traces of cometary dust on his lapel
arriving home late from a forbidden ritual?
I sometimes sense another voice behind Ford’s,
sweet alto, though equally deep,
explaining why Big John was so bad,
and why it never really bothered anyone.
Anyway, it’s pointless to bother understanding the game at all:
mostly stuff gets hidden, maybe someone
finds something pertaining to an almost answer. No prizes.
But the whippoorwill never returns.
