Earthling Talk Talk

The code-name for chisel is scribble baby, scribble
The pseudonym for flower is coalescing opus

The cipher for grass is presume to fizz, fizz to presume
The pet name for ocean is probability splits

The image for cloud is scuttling red maw
The cognomen for leaf is snitch mechanism 

The mark for eye is particulate insemination
The moniker for airplane is smudge-head manifest

The anonym for pencil is six little moons
The nom de guerre for songbird is Archie

The soubriquet for summer is ah I say ah-ah
The dub for Venus is unscriptured ministry

The nickname for typewriter is stun the night watchman
The figure for apple is space shot to papa

The stage name for spoon is cricket-in-the-pew 
The cryptonym for cat is sonata needling

The symbol for iceberg is rubescent scalawag
The trait for Australia is your tongue here

The street name for skyscraper is nocturne seepage 
The label for art is Boolean cocktails at dawn

The handle for Orpheus is thrill-o-vision 
The icon for sponge is delphiniums among us

The appellation for stone is transluminant fido 
The nom de plume for snow is hastening the eardrum

The pictogram for pistol is Edna St. Vincent Millay
The pen name for subway is book up book lung 

The alias for black hole is starved darkness
The epithet for bicycle is and every yard a new spider

The character for shoe is run dog run 
The false name for bread is burning tears, eh?

The AKA for tree is hoodoo redoubt
The tag for Antwerp is here be considerable sparrow 

Lining the Horizon With Soft Animals

The sky is pressed 
starling.  Egg drop soup drapes

the fox maple.  
The familial gaga, 

the nonce-saga 
is that great (cubed) 

grandpa Seward lugged 
that tree’s sapling 

in an ale satchel 
from the Isle of Sheppey 

to plant in our ha-ha,
here in America

near Niagara Falls.  
I use the night 

vision goggles
to trace fruit bats 

hanging from our 
sour cherry’s branches.  

Those hunky-dorys 
are sized like fists.  

They are night’s nuncios 
and shaped like nun buoys.  

They are ninja
winging nunchuks, 

keen to use Eskrima 
flail techniques 

like Bruce Lee 
to get what they want,

like Dante 
wielding terza rima

to get what they need—
fresh flies and stale dope.

I use the periscope, 
attached to the roof 

of our farmhouse
to spy on a pair of ghost 

lambs—whose wool is best 
for flying carpets, 

or so the lineal tale goes.  
Sheppey is a word 

rived from ancient Saxon 
from Sceapige, meaning: 

isle of sheep.  I’ve not been 
over there, over there, just under 

here where our orchard 
of Northern Spy is lined 

with flak catchers 
like punky heather, like

farkleberries and barbed wire 
to fend off

subfusc burrowers like 
leopard moths and Leopard Tanks.   

As a lad, I recall, as a kid
we put out to lake

in our midget subs
to assail Toronto.

I can still smell Argo-
nauts burning at the breach.

That was then, that was
when the skies

were not strontium all day.
Saxon is: software, heavy 

metal, a math professor
in Cambridge, England;

Saxon is a website 
for German smokers,

a video game with laser-
slashing samurai,

the electronic Beowulf 
project; Saxon is: an actor  

who appeared in 80 films 
including Nightmare 

on Elm Street, The Appaloosa,  
and Enter the Dragon

and a mutual fund 
that is the model of strength 

and transparency; Saxon 
is Cnut, emperor of the North,

a fencing club
in West London, a kinder-

garten teacher from Perth,
a town in Wisconsin,

a uniform manufacturer.
Saxon is a lonely trapper 

in Knutte, Alaska.
My ground-penetrating

sonar picks-up
a warren of lop-ears.

The robot says the snow owl
in the barn loft

is clean as a silhouette,
as a dalliance,

a wet dustbin, tongue
done with mopping for food.  

The owl opines:
the robot is lost

to interference.
The family twine

is empty—I got no pants
drying on that breeze. 

Is it time for me to go home?
Claim what’s mine?

America needs 40 winks
with a wet noodle.  Yes

this Yank will lade his quilt
with stars and roses,

with a Jacob’s ladder
and cock-a-doodle-can-do

and let’s not forget
my material—Hellfire 

laser designated missiles
and ammo 

for my articulating 
weapons pylon. 

And of course, a handful 
of modest nukes.

I’ll sail across the Atlantic—
back to my Sheppey.

Thu ure faether, the eart
on heavenum, sy thin

nama holygod.
The sky is pressed starling.