Tableau (taˈblō) - a group of
models or motionless figures
representing a scene from
a story or from history.


The poet laureate is—
inexplicably—on his
knees, holding a

jack-o-lantern above
his head and the self-
proclaimed Great Leader

has just stepped behind
the pumpkin, with its
crooked smile, which

obscures his head and
the eclipsed moon—
a blood moon—hangs

over the Fool in his
green and red checked
costume, holding his

recently authored book,
Chaos Theory, The Order
Within Disorder, while he

opens the gate of the
lion’s cage, and behind
them, in the far distance

is the black smoke and
swirling fires of war, and
opposite the war are the

masses of somnambulist
citizens, crashing into
one another like carnival

bumper-cars, and in the
mid-distance is a blur
of a figure—probably the

Mad Scientist—next to his
new invention, the eight-
armed Robotic Chain-saw,

The Federal Model and
nearest to us, hovering in
the gathering darkness are

translucent Celestial Beings
holding a banner that reads
Beginnings Are Endings,

and below them, a journalist
prostrate in the mud, deathly
ill, vomiting a bile black as ink.

Insight, clear
and precise,
like mathematics
in the hands
of a poet.

The opportunistic
nouns are using
the lying adjectives

as they all cling
to the period, which
is catastrophically

overheated, as it
spins round and
round, and the  

verbs are moving
to the endless
margins where they

can just be, then
all is black ink,
the text redacted.

She reads the
letter there, by
moonlight, under
the pear tree;
the fruit so ripe
it may fall
at any time.

The morning snow falling
silently. The children

are absorbed in their play.
The house is murmuring

and sighing. The dad with
the noisy mind lives in

his own world.

Under the harvest
moon, the farmer
mourns his dead
wife. In his black
suit, sitting on
the white rock,
he looks like
a question mark.

She’s renovating
the old house.

The kids are
making costumes

—he’s a ghost,
she’s Cinderella.

The apple tree,
recently dressed

in red and green, is
now nearly naked.