Ladies and gentlemen of the esteemed jury
I stand before you,
To present you with a puzzle
No ordinary puzzle, you see, it’s more of a
Maggot-infested riddle
You see, it’s more of a
Black hole fine-tuned to slip through fine-combed teeth.
Ah, your faces! Your fish-eyes are glistening and
Globbing with anticipation,
You love to take and take, so impatient!
Those mouths agape crusted at the corners with
Cigarette spit.
You see, ladies and gentlemen
Of this remarkably esteemed jury, I present you with three tricks.
For my first trick, I will swallow daisies
And vomit out glass –
Impossible! Impossible!
Daisies are pretty little things,
Precisely, but the acidic pools of the stomach
Have a talent for turning things wretched,
And even a daisy can slice a throat like shards,
With the right amount of pressure.
Listen to the crackling glass between my teeth
The blood streams and it pours!!!
I know, you’re amazed – but I am not done,
The second trick, my infallible guests,
This blood, sticky and oozy, blackened with tar
I’ll turn sweet into the flesh of a child ---
Antichrist! Antichrist!
The devil lives in you he sings,
And sings sweetly I might add,
But the devil was cut from the mildew cloaked
Cloth of God, the fibres of which
Live in our fingernails.
Ah look! There she is, a pudding face,
Lather me in honey, sugar, cinnamon, and dates
I still could not be sweeter,
Fresh breath untainted by invisible poisons,
And those fat fingers scraping the thick air
For golden apples.
Your faces are souring, pallid with rage… but wait, please –
My greatest trick yet, you see,
I will make myself disappear.
I know, I know, impossible! Impossible!
You’re of bone! You’re of flesh! You’re of brain!
But bones break, you can pulse them to dust
Place flesh in a kiln and it’ll melt to corn syrup,
And the brain well --
The brain is just folds of wetted gauze,
Held together by the tongue-licks of librarians.
With the force of enough pressure, as I will demonstrate,
Evaporation is possible.
Firstly the brain, which dissolves into a vaporous gas,
Seeps out through the fences of ear-hairs --
And slips imperceptibly through the miasma.
Once the brain is dissolved, then the bones and flesh
Broken and molten –
You want me to stop?
Oh there’s rotten sinew everywhere on the freshly varnished wood!
You faulty executioners wield not silver axes but scythes,
And the scythe cuts through chaff sure,
But not bone, devoted patrons —
And after all, it is what you wanted,
One last trick.