I was a teenager.

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1

In Cognito you
wear a silk kimono with
fluorescent pink cranes.

2

Time ticks underfoot
and your teeth find a turquoise
nail as it contracts,

Pulsing silently
through the room of the Wolfmother
wallpaper - to where??

3

This is where - this, here,
where he stood like peyote
on Big Red's pink tongue,

this is where Archie
Andrews and Confucius met
and drew sand-comics

that told the stories
banned from the dinner table
of their wild romance.

4

This is where Tori
pleased King Trident in exchange
for his daughter's voice,

where Bjork scattered her
desired constellation
into the compost,

where the sun worshipped
a Norwegian prince, where the
moon curdled and sighed,

where Jupiter dipped
her toes in the milky way
and birthed chocolate.

5

This is the vacuum
that sucked all the cream filling
out of Buddha's tits,

where the flannel stitch
in your froggie pyjamas
unwound, inch by inch,

where you went hunting
for the shroom that inspires
(in mint chocolate chip),

where you struck the match
in the belly of the beast
and found Hamlet's tears

that birthed, with a spark,
a magical zamboni
to roll all your joints.

6

Is this not where you
developed a tolerance
for olive nougat,

in the tight embrace
of the Jolly Green Giant?
Did you not learn that

a haiku a day
keeps the shaman away, or
at least the little

yellow monkies that
steal your silver bells with huge,
amiable eyes?

Poor kimono boy,
totally helpless to their
coquette charisma,

weaving in and out
of alternate consciousness
in your hypercube.

7

And is this not where
you were conceived, azure man?
Do you not sit on

the sacred pillow
that beckoned to your father's
every zen whim,

cradled the cheeks of
your mother's blushing bottom?
Do not be disturbed,

kimono boy; for
Love was your parent, and her
licorice scent, too.

Is this tatami
beneath your lanky heels not
the one of legend?

Is it not the pan
that fried the fish your mouth has
always watered for?

So reel it in, scrape
off its scales, and soak in its
pthalto blue juices.

8

Do you remember,
kimono boy, azure man,
when you came here first?

The night you drank a
latte made from the shaved nails
from scorpion toes,

a sweet concoction
rendering you willing to
sleep with Astuva

and his seven sons?
Do you remember when you
chewed reptile gumdrops,

When your trapezoid
transvestite drank a case of
frankfurter resin?

Then, you danced all night
and day with your ancestor
iwas, sacrificed

your old shedded skins
in the grand cacophonous
exoskeleton;

now you sit at your
picnic on green arrowheads,
smacking your dry lips...

9

... For the tart river
that jounces tanukis with
its flow of honey.

Here is where you met
that enchanted gypsy snatch,
that sarong goddess

whose drawstring even
bonsai, with kitty cackles,
reached out to undo.

Right here, she and a
rogue samurai invented
coconut cream pie.

So before you jump,
before you wade back in to
make new love with her,

please remove your socks,
and maybe your feet, to feel
it between your toes.

For there, in her plush,
pillowy arms, you whiffed the
almonds and mushrooms!

(Chocolate-covered
nuts would never be the same
again to your tongue.)

Do you remember,
that morn in the zen garden,
where you left that tongue?

10

'Twas here you met the
Birthday Man, his underpants
around his ankles

and processed cheddar
freckles salt-and-peppering
his red, windblown nose.

"Can I ask you a
personal question?" he says
and sheds a wee tear,

and all you can do
is smile and nod and bend to
the ground on your knees.

"When is your birthday?"
he groans, casts his dice, and you
spot a resemblance

between their grandiose
size and shape and thirty-three
prized flea market pears.

(Wait-flea market pears?
Who on earth put what in your
cornflakes this morning?)

You wipe your lips with
a pumpkin seed and then his
cheeks, along with that

silly gratified grin.
finally, your taste buds numb,
your human brain a

mangled mass of chow
mein noodles, you rise and tell
him, "the eighth of June."