Tosspot and Jawbone

The corpsedresser put halfpennies over Paddy’s eyes and wired his jawbone shut with copper brads and wire, resized his denture plate to fit in the coopery of his mouth and sealed him up in an oak box, a leftover from the groceries last delivery. Bloom, lemony scented soap pocketed, left the funeral precession and recrossed the Liffey from the other side, the one he’d crossed before purchasing his morning paper. Mrs P. Dogman dressed in foxhound wrapper and beaches boots threw the first curd of dirt on poor Paddy’s hole and then recrossed the gravesite in small even strides, her hair a will-o’-the-wisp, arms akimbo, teeth a thither and at chatter. 'Fucking sot', she intoned. 'Needlessly wasting a fair to middling day'. Bloom strode underfoot to the Sham-o-tam and hoisted a gin and phonic, his ears paraffin and none the banter, Blazes tosspot cuckolder of Molly, Parnell and Ramsblood gibing from beneath bedsheetsstokinglardpattythighs, bloomers cinched high and over.

Kidney for Bloom

I sit opposite you, Bloom, and wave a finger,
You take your fork,
And put this plump, firm kidney in your mouth.

Feel it in your mouth,
The smooth oval of it.

The urinary tract love of it,
Run your finger along its edge.
Let it tickle your tongue.

Mr Bloom, can I interest you,
In my forkfulls?

I want to tempt you with heaps of urea.

I want to let droplets of blood grace your chin.

Let me lift up my fingers,
And feed you pancreatic ducts,
Lippy feeders,
Maybe a touch of dressed film.

I look at your gorgeous lips,
Find them enticing,
Want them open a little,
For entering.

The kidney,
It is wet and dripping,
It is ripe for tasting.
It is fresh and plump.

Oh Poldy,
Lay kidney like in my lap,
I shall stroke your ear,
And make you rise,
Like fantastic breakfast.

Haematites

the
sea offers
up cod’s tongues, onyx shells, a
basket of
salt

I awoke disconnected to the thingamajig that haematites my fingers. This, so I was forewarned, portents a genocide of grammar and syntax, an elocutionary enchorial common to roustabouts and dustbin-men. Corruption, especially in the pre-frontal midrib, can cause horrid whooping and colic, night-sweats and coopery, a barrelhouse of shit-aphelia and whorish language. I will see what can be done, and rewire the cursor that attenuates the Babel in my head, next to Roget’s commode, a cowslip and the rector-rector’s bench.

Molly Sleeps

Molly sleeps with one foot on the pillow. She dreams. She dreams. One whole thigh on the pillow. Near the face. The melon places are full and rounded. She lets free a depth-giggle from her lips. Molly lets free of the night. She sits at nine and twelve with one leg that side and one this. She makes shapes under silk. With the gentle shapes of her breath, just visible.

Molly finds hats.

When she, I, you. She, me, together, we, us, delve under blankets of skin. Delve under dressing table frills. She opens. Toes. Feet. Mouth. Round rotundity. Round smells. Dripping lips. Wake. Drip-tips. Armed grids of broken foot-under. Touches. Morning glories. Within hands and grips of soft melody hands. Molly arch-under and over. We, you, three, one, two, clean, dirty.

Rudy was alive once. Now no more. He wears his tiny velvet suit and hides a lamb.

Tonight, she only thinks of two things.

Neon Lights in Dublin

Saw your name, Molly, up there in pink Neon. Saw your name up there on Trinity College and it stood out for a moment. But nobody really cared. It flickered and then there was big fuzzy fizz and it disappeared forever. And no-one even noticed or replaced the light-bulb. It fizzled out in the night.

I saw your name, Molly.
I remember your tender face and smile.
I remember when we sat on top o' Howth Head and shared seed across the lips. The seed-cake crumb. I won't let you go out. Saw your name, Molly.

Saw your name Molly, standing out on pink. Standing out on arch-backs and green wisps of grass. Saw your face in pink-pout. Saw the hat cocked a-top the spade. Blazestakeinthearms.

Saw your pink Molly. I shall not let you go out. Tender arms shall cradle you one day. Back there on Howth. And Molly, frail and mahogony eye of you. Your hair in the wind there.

Trinity. Trinity. Trinity. Martello.

James Aloysius Aquinas

Coalmen Milquetoast sat in a child’s plastic swimming pool with an umbrella, a can of sterna and three gimlets, one with gin and bitters, one with rum and cola and the other with absinth and Jamaican spruce beer. He was sunning, so he said to whomever queried, as it was midwinter and his skin was sallow, white and crumbly. ‘Have you read Aquinas?’ he trumpeted, for no other reason than he felt so inclined, recumbent and besotted on the trinity and spruce beer as he was. One man, on onlooker with a crook and palsied eye, asked, ‘have you ever been to Jamaica, dear sir?’ Coalmen Milquetoast replied, begrudgingly, ‘have you ever read Aquinas, dear sir?’ A fat woman walking a dog on a bejewelled leash, a gift from a cake-maker who worked on and oil derrick, stopped and inquired, ‘dear sir, have you ever read Jacqueline Suzanne?’ The onlooker with the crook and palsied eye, interrupting Coalmen Milquetoast who was fiddling with a loose spar on his umbrella, replied, ‘have you ever been to Jamaica, Madame?’ The sky fell in atop they’re heads, all three, and the dog who was busy sniffing and scratching and peeing, a sign from God, or Aquinas or the Beriberi Spruce Beer company, the very same one that Jacqueline Suzanne visited while on vacation in Jamaica with the cake-maker, the fat woman’s dog and Coalmen Milquetoast’s copy of the Summa Theologica.

Bioscopy of the rectos: surgeon’s gel and scotching, Rebus suckling Romulus, nipple-rings and inking; a colonoscopy of anus and cuckold. Foxtrot calliope, a ring-around-the-posy, seal fat, bleb and oil of castor, for those hard to reach spots, beneath armpit and gland-cove, scoured clean with mason’s trowel and lye. I had a bream last night, he said, Abramis brama with salt cod and capers, not the sort of thing you’d want to eat on an umpteen’s stomach, all that jujubery and blackstrap mole-asses, a whales-worth of eel’s tongue and flesh-eyes, not for the faint of art or nervosa. He said, ‘have you read Aquinas, you blubbery fools? Mine was swiped by some menace with a dog’s collar and a thief’s shim, Summa con Gentiles, too, wrapped in wax-clothe and chutney, sad day it is, when Aquino’s tome isn’t safe and round’.