Nicolau Teixeira: K-hole

All characters and events in this poem are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Every character is taken from life; every one of them; not one of them is invented.

K-hole

after Danny Kaye on The Muppet Show

It matters 
what u put inside ur body
like it matters, 
matter of fact,
what’s in our air,
& aired out, 
what’s really the matter 
assumes a pattern
to highlight this life.

What’s the matter with me 
depends on what’s the matter with u 
& what face u put on ur old lunch box.  

It most definitely matters.

It may not matter to a General
Inspector, but it matters to a Heart of Fire.

It also matters which language version of history 
ran alongside all ur duplicitous Tinder Boxcar lines.

Just like it matters 
which Ugly Thumbnail & Steadfast Duck was on the floppy disk, 
& which Soldier Queen & Freckled Trunk was on the hard disk,
& which Little Air’s New Clothes were burnt on the compact disc,
& which Goblin Stone’s Shadow in Jester-Jagger Face was on the digital disc. 

It really mattered 
which Cupboard Indian Match figurine stood fixed by its Achilles 
heel, hooked in on the wee peg of a plastic flying-saucer disk, 
made in order to display self™ on the shelf,
& shine like a Psyche Technicolor red kite 
tethered down to a representable being 
with fine string as light as spider web.

Once again, I foolishly try to take another layer off this center-nesting doll,
as a litany of lighthearted Russian composers play on to passions intensely,
& I watch the masterpiece of The Red Shoes for the thousandth time,
only a fraction the amount of times I’ve heard Ariel’s voice 
crashing up against the Pisces waves of Proteus, 
with her dickie-bird heart, 
as a song was born,
to be a part 
of our world.

As if being caught red-handed by the Wonder Man, You’re
watching that show, again? my only father would state to me
with disapproval & concern & with emphasis on again?

Yes, Daaaaaaaaadddddddddddddddddddd, 
just widening my outsider perspective
as I insert kind, bumbling idiot chips
into my anti-social-yet mobile ship 
so as to be sure my heart will hear 
Morse cassette codes as clear as a Beach
Boys’ tune inside my red Sony Walkman— 

Just in case I ever am to be signaled
like the chosen living baby warship 
sounds off calling out to Aeryn 
Sun now—knock on wood— 
​ENTER: A Wrinkle in Time.  

Science fiction understands me 
trying to understand the science 
of the mass of the media fiction 
& what’s the matter with our country
& what really matters in this world 
of life 
that’s been given to us 
by balls of energy conductors.

           U know something, 
a character named Nigel could have been the host of The Muppet Show 
if he wasn’t such an uncharismatic, sniveling, little wimp!

I pray.
I do. 
& I pray & I beg
for a ginger snap slap 
to knock me out of this 
merry ship-shape-shift 
& make me submit already
on the double, once & for all
& stop caring
about what matter is put into 
this dummy changeling vessel, 
& willingly watch Whatever & kill
time with brand new reboots by Arius’s son, 
The Man with Fiery Red Eyes, waiting 
only waiting,
to blow snow white smoke up my nose,
selling me Mandy that the Red Coats lost,
& the slave & the dandy, Caliban & Ariel,
are not being used for the business of show
to sell salt-of-Peter cathedral scarlet letters 
for shame 
& this is the Age of an Air Sign.

After the nightclub incident,
my train left me carrying my name.

I am the boy with The Red Balloon.
I am the Man with Visine Red Eye.
I am Prospero, 
unavoidably mad,
           predictably disappointing.
I am the fog 
finally getting run 
over by my esteem 
train’s oblique view 
I never expected
& it ain’t no sin 
to take off your skin 
& dance around in  
bones to Terpsichore.

This life 
is an energy deprived 
of any atoms that matter.
It’s a blood brother of Human 
Bondage. In Brooklyn, stuffy, snotty 
thoughts, of the star-strutted rot of
Denmark, keep making me rat-sick 
@ heart, ill-at-ease, trying to get by,
once again,
as five little piggy pens hold 
up my apple cheek of tongue.

I am a rhubarb sausage Chinese longevity noodle sliding through a red ribboning wormhole. 

This life 
is supposed to be 
such happy times.

C’mon,
Katratzi happy already!

This life

of deviated septum,

while outside,

                      somewhere,

           what's the matter?

It somehow physically pained 
me to be unable to figure out 
how Marvel girl Jean Grey’s soul
could exist as another Phoenix 
burning up @ the same end.  
The numbers didn’t add up 
right. It didn’t make sense.

The only lie I could come up with 
to rest my professor brain’s torment
was that it simply had to be the exact same 
reason why the Wicked Witch of the West
could not touch the red shoes on Dorothy’s feet— 

which was simply because the slippers were sealed
to her person— 

to every single disk of her spine— 

like some exquisite 
kissed curse 
of God
for
this life
to exist
elsewhere 
inside an arithmetic of airs,

& the heart has its reasons 
whereof reason knows nothing.

& it all matters

until it doesn’t

Nicolau Teixeira (@muppoet) can be found blogging at muppoems.com.