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Like the whorl of an out-of-this-world ear that had been lent

to an oak-gall wasp by a tenth century Irish monk

who would hold out oak-gall ink against the predicament

in which he found himself...

Like the ever-unfolding trunk

of the elephant in the room that gives such a bad vibe

it vies with your old hippie girlfriend who once lent such weight

to any argument to which you feared she might subscribe,

including her insistence we abbreviate

our most promising rlshps...

Like the scrolled-down tail

of a Capuchin monkey drawing on its inner strengths

as it hammers short-sighted snail against short-sighted snail

that has nonetheless gone to extraordinary lengths...

Like the tapeworm swallowed by a hippie who once was fat

but is now kind of bummed out you’ve lost track of where she’s at.

Paul Muldoon