by Garrett Ray Riggs
One God Outgrew His Italian Boot, Made for Walkin’
pantoum fantasma después de Señor Wences en El Muppet Show
Maestro, these young folk are (will go) going to
make a treehouse. Do you understand English?
Señor, they have hammer heads but will need a
fine point of sound nail after jagged saw, alright?
MR., all ghostly human libel facts grow like firm
branches w/word salad ends for delivery/pickup?
SIR? Mark the flying day. Silver saucer plates of
fifth dimension come thru flawless wall! Return
Chief, the sharp young folk saw right & smite
hammers on heads of all points to make sound.
Foolish April works the first cruel metal shift from
daylight to darkest of night w/her (manic) flash-
light, on high (five), as shiny saucer plates shatter,
flying into the dimensions of TV wall’s (mark the
day, sir!) content for wastelands as vast as Russia.
2 thumbs pushup 1 + show 4 string-along length.
One less cruel fool, April meddles w/her daylights
only to turn flashlight nights to deeper tunnels so
that all folk r allowed to educate themselves how 2
make black-velvet shadow puppets of hare & turtle
for shows in TV land, a vast waste 2 steps too short
to rush in w/power & pull some strings & end up
boxing up laced tongues to send out for respect &
tap wires like keys that spring creation or else they’ll
wait to execute e-wire-coil shoes to knee-deep young
wading. Folk avoid education to play shadow puppets
of wolf & dog & donkey & American Nazi & in rare
form, they’ll paint sign NO ROCK MAN IN/OFF to
ward off mental conquistadors on who to terminate &
dangle on wire like shoes respectably laced for Spring.
Water is key to mobile design. They will take the dead
figures on paper to vault & hang us by their talking heads.
Conquistadors take over fort signing NO MAN OUT
ON ROCK to form & paint rare minds in shadowbox
set, w/all the heads that save face during the fanning
ordeal of trying on slippers. The dead figures, hanging
for vaulted heads to take paper & mock talking head’s
doughy conversations w/gods, themselves, as wholly
comprehendible clown voices that knock, only to take
& make it higher to hang w/real block heads who make
or deal for fans to try to make the shoe fit, so their faces
can be saved in a box. Lying branches. All things come
back. Human ghosts grow into headstone words that’ll
leave convos w/god dough, knocking self, soldier clown,
misunderstood & pushed out treehouse by Captain who
saw dust willfully go & come through, by voices from a
dream, when * inquires if you do understand
crickets?
Nicolette Teixeira is a Luso-American clown of Fall River, MA, now living in NY, NY. More on this work is archived at muppoems.com.
Garrett Ray Riggs is an artist and writer who works in acrylic and ink. Texture and vibrant color are primary features in his portraits and abstract paintings. This is his second appearance in Feral and his work has also been featured in Another Chicago Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, and Mary: A Journal of New Writing among others. Find him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garrettrayriggs/