Mad Sermon in the Cubist Bar

Tell me, sages, what’s a poor double invert to do
when a million Reichsmarks is toilet paper?
Am I to grow a beard and settle down?
Pray to the Unutterable Name that the mother-in-law won’t clock
my female stink and the rot taking root in my heart?
Or am I to chase my own personal Wandervogel,
the putrid remains of ruptured Arabesque dreams
in Frankensteinian funhouse mirrors,
spreading my legs for man and beast alike?
I’ll kill myself, do you hear, I’ll kill myself
before you can say “Unglück!”

A Nazi parade materializes on the staircase—
men’s legs, shapely and strong, multiply as in a fly’s eyes:
why cry havoc at the Hakenkreuz and the hobnails
when their high kicks and shimmies are so irresistible,
when their white skin shines with sweat?
Jawohl, meine Herren, cries a cockroach prostitute
with a sextuple salute, I was written by Kafka,
and when he died his sisters dumped me here, the bitches!

(Yes, all is foretold, yes, free will is given,
say the ghosts of the sages—
yes, we are greater than prophets
because we slaved at our books
and were not granted visions.)

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