Arsenic Lobster poetry journal
Issue Twenty-five
Spring 2011
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Synesthesiastic Amtrak Sonnet
Dennis Mahagin's

When the fat conductor smiled at a honey child across the aisle,
I distinctly heard the beet stains on his front teeth thump 19 kinds
of miles, like Alvin and the Chipmunks, a bump and grind
of a particular kind, all inside a leather cup for tossing vials
and craps dice-- while reading lights shot glissandos of saxophones.
Dimmer switches, you see, can sense a see saw out of spite, a blown
fart came on me like a fuse, Whitefish depot at dawn, it lit apart
like match heads mating with One Cheek Sneak. Abetted by a smart
black man porter, as if to peek at my ticket, said: Albacore? Unleaded?
This Scatman pranced from dining car to sleeper berth, tapping snakes
for a cane. He barber-striped my spine through the switch backs, feted
my whistle that blew in cool shades of lime...Then Kelly, who makes
an aisle, always, across my mind, said lightning is shaped as wrist veins
on Wichita switchmen. Observation deck? Blue, with streaks. She came.

About Dennis Mahagin's

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