i looked, and couldn’t find my keys. i put them down,
or when i kicked my shorts off for a shit
they slipped into the bowl and swirled around—
a common circumstance I must admit.
The jets were playing cleveland, and—damn!
i ran to get a case of lemonade
with liquor in it, like the women drink
and teenage hoodlums robbed me in a scam
and russian hookers held a flesh parade
and azure piggies threw me in the clink.
there was a time my keys were like a clown
that made a zoo of animals, and shit
from brown balloons zoologist would drown
with garden hoses. come to think of it
my keys could never make a parlored lamb
though keys in front of babies serenade
the wordsworth truth. rainbows? fathers? think!
you must return to where you saw them slam
against the lease agreement that will raid
my life of any joy, travel forward past its ink.
o, mighty chorus, jewel in heaven’s crown
who put down harps and took to thumbing it
to bliss apartment complex just outside of town
and lifted cushions, looking where i sit—
you sing of someone whose familiar wham
when doors were shut behind him is delayed
by missing keys as valuable as mink.
and keys I’ll never find, my messy pentam
is all the homage to this lost decade
my empty pockets muster, lacking link.
