a story of some lines

(for lytle shaw and christian morgenstern)

the desiccated vampire head
had been decorated with feathers
but it is hard to find it now
as it lurks in the heavy mane
of the snow wolf as it gallops
wearing a black iron tiara
which looks like a letter V
made of twin lightning bolts
and all this happened just before
out of nowhere a skinny little fish
fell right in its path
and now then they're raining everywhere
dropped presumably from the undulating
striped and worm-like zeppelin
which seems to have docked
on a distant snow-topped peak
and from which now debarking
are what look like stylized monks
in procession wearing balloon cowls
so that they drift gently down
but even farther away
one sees a winged mummy
flying high over the snowfield
and executing a turn a banking
as it heads for its lair
which looks like a carved eye
at the peak of an adjacent crag
and in which the pupil
is a cave with a landing porch
which is flanked with braziers of boiling glue
to warm its bones and refinish its bandages