Reading Ulysses in Montana #555

Hurled to the depths of the lengths of leather sandals, vandals of another marble encountered a sneer of lollygags on their way to Majorca.

Entertainments not withstanding, handing a cold hand to the other three sails at high tide could do nothing to assuage the ages of empires and dust. Rust was another matter altogether, whether you believe in the efficacy of Perry Mason’s true temper or not. Shilling for shifting sands outside of time and all the space implied therein, carnival maidens wove braids of linen sheets into garnishes of parsley, sage, and rosemary, time having exited briefly for a personal holiday.

Candide forgot the lines Voltaire had insinuated, but the great Lisbon earthquake made a name for more than one officer of the philosophical brigade in sandals and harried journeys to Majorca, none too soon.

Reading Ulysses in Montana #617

The hard candy turned a severe case of severity into the flavor of the month, two weeks after the fatal birth of the end of the line.

Meanwhile, lime green messes of dresses lined the walls of the thrift store on the second story of the honorable road through the brutal center for floating casualties in gingham. Confused, Noah knew no way to get to the second story, having read the first story too many times over the course of forty days–the rest of the crew not allowing burning oil lamps during the forty nights on account of the vessel being made entirely of wood. But what to do with all those dresses?

Endless statutes instructed the dress maker how to pop the candy corn with extra butter and a severe case of hulls in the teeth.

Reading Ulysses in Montana #215

Frogs in a parlor of furious trifles forgot the meaning of the word of the day, but they endeavored to improve themselves nonetheless.

Lester had no other qualms about going it alone than that his other three were still dissatisfied. Remarkable as it was, you can imagine what happened next. As far as Lester was concerned, a fortnight of four score dreams in the forecastle of frivolous delights was long enough to draw the forlorn conclusion that the shortest route to your destination is through the teeth of the storm, and the stronger the storm, the shorter the route. Paths of glory, paths of graves, paths of madding crowds trampling the road least taken until the yellow wood is a parking lot full of yellow taxis.

The crack of the main mast woke Lester from his despondent reveries of frogs and trifles, and he opened himself to the enthusiasm of love once more.

Reading Ulysses in Montana #605

The three-hole punch of whimsy dictated the last of the sounds of the falling waters at the edge of the language most forgotten. None given, none needed.

Ginger, on the other hand, put her hand in her other hand and gave George the sound of her own most forgotten language, learned as a youth at the knees of Milne and White until they went into law and discovered the other thirteen most forgotten languages in the world. George said that should read misbegotten, not forgotten. Ginger said that’s what White said on his way to the gallows. George said you mean galleys. Ginger said of course, but gallows sounds better. George said maybe in your most misbegotten language. Ginger said see. George saw.

George took the saw and cut the table in half. Ginger said two halves make a hole, so they entered the three-hole punch of whimsy and forgot all that was misbegotten in the most lost and most forlorn languages of evermore.

Reading Ulysses in Montana #444

Delighted, I’m not so sure! Enlightened beyond a shadow of the principle of least insistence, Ginger frowned.

George went into the wilderness for thirty-three minutes and found what Ginger was looking for, but he could not return it to civilization because the MacGuffin was long past its inspiration date and wanted to remain nearer the realm of mystery and doubt. Dubious instincts aside, George whittled the fiddle down to a bow tie and said to no one how do I clip this on. Onward, the minute minutes passed, getting smaller and smaller with each step of the toad in the suit of Jiminy Cricket. George remembered what Ginger had never asked for but had read about in dreams, and he smothered his way out of the wilderness with seven seconds to spare.

The shadow of the MacGuffin haunted Ginger long after George had earned the sleep of the lefteous, but the crows and ravens applauded her tender resolve.

Reading Ulysses in Montana #47

Assorted sordid tales, assembled by emblems of dignity, embarked on the back of a barking dog to find the end of the line.

Lions were quickly going out of style with flourishes of fortunate haste, battered with butter alongside the kangaroo of freedom, bound by sacred oaths these three score and seven decades ago. Against the winding staircase, the worm turned into a caterpillar in the kind of transmogrification reserved for only the most contrite species on the distant planet they call Earth. Berms of loam and joy overwhelmed the last of the first timers to enter their name for the winning of a new dishwasher.

But it was dandelion season, and no one knew better than the first last-timers how the rest of the summer would go down, to the ground, to get out of the boom boom.

Reading Ulysses in Montana #266

Empty. Fortunes rose over the flight of the new bumblebee, and the zest of melon beckoned another string of plaudits.

Pundits, on the other hand, filled the void unwittingly as Ginger took course correction maneuvers, compensating for George’s idiot driving along the frozen pond of future’s past. Shriving another dozen florins on her way to Florence, Texas (a stone’s throw from Paris, depending on how far you can throw such stones), Ginger gave Florence another thing to think about concerning George’s lawn mower and the well-worn path to the pub of reckoning. Or so it seemed.

However the bumblebee looked at things, the melon never rose to the significance of the lemon, for the trees the bee’s melons grew on gave blossoms large enough to swallow said bee, bumble or not. The plaudits would have to remain enough for the time being, and the string remained as empty as her fortunes.

Entirely too late to do anything useful, the zebra left.

Reading Ulysses in Montana #624

The snowfall in Central Park, the winds in Red Square, your torn raincoat on the steps of the National Gallery.

But where are you now that the sun is shining? Shining all along the river and the paths through the forest, the forest of your discontent that year when the moon fell hard from the sky, the sky of darkness near your last round with the guitar and my sighs, my songs. Where are you since the songs began to sing on their own and weep for the past, weep for the future of empty jars of wine and roses, empty these seven years of silence–of solitude.

The streets of heaven and the bogs of hell are not yet ready for you, for your shine, for your absence. Put your time back in the bottle and send it to me on the high seas of changes that crash against the yellow wood.

The Uffizi and St. Marks and the Spanish Steps wait more patiently than I do. Winter comes, will you?

Reading Ulysses in Montana #48

Books about rooks and starlit castles flowed across the sands of time and rivers of eternity.

Bishops became orthogonal in the heady days of lost souls, but the queen had other designs aligned with forgotten habits of empty talk show hosts and blithe laundry maidens. The king returned from the pawn shop with the bag of marbles he had lost years prior to the immigration of the nation’s imaginary belly flop into the pool of recondite fools.

Hoops were no match for the knights of tables of any geometry, trigonometry being lightly regarded in those parts of the realm situated thus and thusly. Annihilated vagabonds erupted in praising the prawns of idle youth, and rusty nails railed against the dying of the night.

Rooks and starlit castles emptied their proverbial trunks of mirth, but it was all for naught come judgment day.

Reading Ulysses in Montana #335

Small ships with hostile intentions surrounded souls with recoiling benevolence and silent friends.

Propitious potions forgot to stew the frog legs before lagging pretty within an inch of their one and only apologies, apologizing for all the whims of her cordial seas. Customs of custard and languages of laggards administered the wrath of neglected bounds, dried under self-same vessels.

Lashed eyeballs waved with satin consent, gladdened by the fondled doorway of prayers and gnashed lotion. Motions disheveled by the chorus of roses rose in pity to touch the knob of enameled cake. Kept past the holy date of expiration, the weathered pear curled to its own credit.

The phoenix rose again in the east, a quirk of fate not yet corrected by artificial intelligence–or any other form of intelligence–while the sovereign ambition kept friends and taxes at bay for the running of the seventh at Richmond, just outside Burnham wood.

Small ships constructed entirely from Burnham wood wore derelict frames of the lost souls of bagpipes and haggis…but no more.