PANEGYRIC OF A FLUORESCENT SAGUARO WHICH ROUSES“IGNATZ MOUSE” FROM TURPITUDINOUS SLUMBER by Noah Wareness

Krazy Kat, by George Herriman, ran from 1913 to 1944.

PANEGYRIC OF A FLUORESCENT SAGUARO WHICH ROUSES
“IGNATZ MOUSE” FROM TURPITUDINOUS SLUMBER
 
The ziggurat Zabbuto boasts a brick of someteen thousand years --
but kall that brick no special kase -- for someday's sun might melt it to a “beer jug.”
And on the sun today a howdah, friend. And overneath three brickbats fly.
And windy klockfaced mesas running redward back as rust.
‘Pon yon vermillion dais suns and stirs a “Kat” whose hardy noggin waits.
“She” knows what love is -- strokes “her” kornered basking-bed of brick.
 
So old, the ruddy ventricles of every kiln-fresh brick!
So ancient, all us players -- all us pieces -- dizzy in the blowing years --
but kreases never come a-krazing “kat” cheeks, cause “he” kannot learn to wait.
To stir the sun “she” plinks a raga on a banjo-bodied “gourd,”
and wizened tumbleweeds below “him” spin in puffing tufts of rust --
You see them, “Mouse” -- their jouncing tangoes — someday they will fly.
           
As sure as every brick you heft has panged and pined for flight --
and sure as “mice” may trust all kactoid exegeses on the quiddities of bricks --     
on high “she” dreams of hurled kisses, loving not to sit and rust --
we pieces all -- o flourpot and jadeplant, sodaflat, o thornsharp notes, o years --
kraving all and one to shimmy -- o to shimmer, o forever -- soul to be -- one “soul”
thereby -- one soul. O eld’rous “Mouse”, you're young as “he” – don't wait.
 
For sometimes kats -- like suns we meet -- will rise for lack of wait.
Observe “her” tilt a soda-straw toward that kobalt-blue and drowsy bottle-fly --
“he” puffs the cracker-yellow mesa wind to tickle 'cross its “wings” --
not bored, our “Kat” pursues the now-viridian kalliphore down terraced brick.
“She'd” never think to stay -- but wandering, “she’d” yearn verbillion years.
The secret bakes beneath the open-shuttered sun -- there’s nothing rusts but rust.
 
O snatch your geriatric love-projectile, “Mouse” -- its silty billow isn't rust --
as teetering Zabbuto mutifies into a stand of pines without its keystone's weight --
now crouch behind my jangle-needled trunk, all windswept, tall with years,
and fondle frantic fingerfuls of firmly fired fill -- for feline frolics forth –- full fly!
“Kat's” hazy kranial bone karessed by ever-most heartfelt of zipping bricks!
O dented temples, “Mouse”, o sodapop and holy Swiss -- o names of “love”.
 
Alas! My newly-shooted kwaternary trunk conceals “Pupp” -– that kop whose “love”
for justice, rectitude and “Kat” kompels him pound you off to rust --
o fuming “Mouse,” you’ll whip your tail, carving days upon your oubliette of brick.
But sure as moons turn blue -- or gorgonzolas gibbous – freedom's no long wait.
A single kop’s got heartmeat newsprint-soft -- he'll blot a sentimental hanky as you fly.
Someday I'll sprout a hand – I’ll toss konfetti in the blowing years.

Noah Wareness

Noah Wareness makes fiction and poetry by hand with scratchy black pens. He does a lot of live storytelling at DIY shows, but Meatheads is his first novel. It first circulated in the folk punk and speculative fiction communities as a handmade zine with wheatpasted cardboard covers and speaker wire for binding. He went to school for writing on the west coast, and now he lives in Toronto with some friends.