Somewhere, out there, in this bleak,
little Romanian opera of a city
full of feral cats, rusted iron
and restless spirits steaming up
from sewer grates-
a blind man selling Nightengales,
an accordian wheezing out
a sad, meandering tune
from strange shadows,
a wind-up submarine
marooned at the bottom
of a cast-iron tub with three
gnarled feet and a brick
subbing in for the missing fourth,
a Punch and Judy puppet show
starring Mickey Mouse
and Marlene Dietrich,
a black votive candle (dedicated
to some lesser known saint) burning
with a blue flame in a 3rd story window,
a barn owl perched on a flag pole,
Kafka playing deep chess with a bed bug,
Tolstoy making small talk with an iguana,
a billy goat munching on a page
from “Being and Nothingness,”
a silver cat napping
on the counter of a hotel cabaret,
a New Year’s Eve streamer (from at least
fifteen years before) hanging
from the ceiling,
a man sitting at a table in the corner,
sipping Sambuca and soda (fleeting thoughts
of his youth like shooting stars across his mind),
coiling up through a red-orange spotlight,
shining down on a tragic torch singer
who has suddenly forgotten the words
to a song she’s sung a thousand times before
about the plumber
and the midget
transvestite?
-Jason Ryberg, 2010
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