Metempsychosis

Christopher Bakka

Penalizing stragglers, the raccoons drink jäger.
Aiden had a lugger—shaky, greasy—
shanked Topolski in his quaint four-poster.
Marquesses are depressives, silkwood naiads
& goosanders reimburse us for their toothcombs.
Enough with all this cant of blessedness. I’d like
a multifocal, lacustrine parterre for weekenders,
the grimmest shiftless dongles, velodromes
for dizygotic oboists who foist netlabs & gastropubs
on dandified cutpurses while romancing anabaptists
with dayflowers, skalds, & specifiers, playbills
for unhorsed laypersons in swampland polyptychs
whose whisperings of true love & embourgeoisement
make warplanes of the unfazed condors, while
at eventide espaliers are Trappists with harpoons.