Poetry · Perlun

Perlun

the whipper snapper child of the sun

His pert blonde spirit

scoured by the Scandinavian Boreas

His head

an adolescent oval

ostrich egg

The victorious silly beauty of his face

awakens to his instincts

A vivacious knick-knack tipped with gold

he puts the world

to the test of intuition

Smiling from ear to ear

Living from other hands to mouth

Holding in immaculate arms

the syphilitic sailor

on his avoided death bunk

or the movie vamp

among the muffled shadows of the shrubberies⁠⸺

Picking lemons in Los Angeles broke

The education of “Prince Fils à Papa”

How low men die

How women love⁠—

The rituals of Dempsey and Carpentier

Perlun

asks “Do these flappers of the millionaires

think I’m a doll for anyone to pat?”