THE THREE GRACES
by John Flynn
Tonight the Marx
Brothers. They're indignant and rage.
So complacent they go,
eyes wide, with angels.
They engage the
declarative sentence like Norwegian
knights turned home.
Wardrobed dell'arte moderne
they murder the
Guelphs and the Ghibellines.
With black bulbed bicycle horns Harpo
honks
like a gaggle of
east-bound geese. The brothers
cover their mayhem
with impromptu parades
and props only a royal
torturer could love.
(A blow torch suttees
cigars and singes
every moustache on the
screen save one.)
Steaming coffee cups
appear like magic saucers
from a mother ship. A
menagerie…of which
less said is better.
Nothing is left to chance. Yet
chance prevails. What
are the chances of that?
~ previously published
in Lost Highways and Living Rooms