1.
A lodger in Tolland County’s Inkwhich Inn,
a storied boarding house in Inkwhich Wood,
I, that Halloween, in chair at parlor
chimney seated, was at supper joined
by Samuel Bludgeon, an innkeeper-aeronaut,
and Agnus Caper, the hotel’s detective.
I, by pair addressed as “Steven,” smiled.
Without Bludgeon’s house’s doors, a woodland
windstorm was, from inn’s quarters’ shelter, barred.
The inn, an edifice-dirigible,
a tavern-submersible, a public
house and train, had to cusp of winter come.
2.
At postwoman’s portly parlor entry gladdened,
Caper, cases’ correspondence clasping, clamored:
“’Twixt bricks of chimney’s bore, through flue in forest floor
of Tolland’s woodland fair, a hairy shape,
in tents’ pit appearing, walls descended, loping,
leering, leaping did, on oxen hooves alighting,
dart ‘neath wires’ whale. There a gas lamp’s wick
in capstan’s cogs lit hackles’ horns of Inkwhich dog.”
“The inn’s mutable hound!” Bludgeon bellowed.
Grinning exclamation ended, entered
Henry, pit’s inparadisial dog,
and Bludgeon’s house’s cunning monsters’ guard.
To refute a frowning farmer’s query,
about his bearded sentry, Bludgeon belched:
“While flight of frost did forest blanch,
on floating bough-bridge rails of branch,
our inn o’er trees in winter lurched
on balloon tracks ’twixt boles of birch.
On halyard sheets of frozen light,
moon-kindled kites of falling snow,
like sails of soot, did tavern tow.
Soon Inkwhich hound appeared, then small,
to trot ’tween trunks in blizzard’s pall.
Approaching prow of Bludgeon’s barge,
night’s dwarfish dog grew eldritch, large,
bore bison’s bulk and height of horse,
wore hide of seal and hair of gorse.
Then slow from stern receding hound
again in frame of dog was bound.
While wolf, disguise uncastled, shrank,
our house through door to barrows sank.”
3.
Her hand on head of house’s hound, Caper,
to tent’s fairground tale returning, stated:
“In lanterns’ leer of Inkwhich Forest well,
where clowns did dart ’neath brass of branches’ bells,
dell’s wind-clapped peals to winter trees affixed,
there ray of moon on rolling motes of snow
did tungsten tents ’top Tolland Circus throw,
fair’s photon-fibers’ incandescent cloth.
Then, as ambulating elm, a giant entered!
On legs of moose, in webbed claws of bat,
fair’s forest giant, clad in cloaks of stone,
did juggle barrel, cauldron-box, and vat,
his tumbling troughs where broths were brewed from bone.
In tanks’ putrescent smoke of clabbered blood,
extruded chimney stalks of mushroom buds
’tween captured bodies’ bearded seams of soup.
There peristaltic pulse of purple worms
in curd of giant’s coffins’ kettles squirmed.”
Growing green at giant’s food, inn’s bakers,
about bodies juggler brewed, inquired.
Fore his sunset fire’s fender marching,
belly-bulksome Bludgeon, broadly breeching
bobbing beard, did to tavern’s bakers say:
“The grinning horse of Tolland Wood
in turning trench of river stood
on legs of stork ’neath strike of rain
in coat of kelp and boarfish mane.
By lamp of moon, in fog of ford,
the horse to circus lodgers lured.
Mare’s tongue of eels ’tween teeth of loam
made binding songs of slime and foam.”
4.
I, keening keel of wooden vessel, heard
a ship with winds o’er rooftop wrestle, wheel-
ing, flapping, flouncing: Whiz-BANG! Whiz-BANG! Whiz-BANG! Knock!
“Flight of bakers’ oaken ornithopter!” exclaimed Agnes.
“They, ridding kitchens’ bobbing treadle-barge,
freights of flour, yeast, and butter carry,
to house’s bread in Bludgeon’s ovens bake—”
“But well’s whale!” I badgered. Agnes rejoined:
“In toadish hand, a taloned span in which could carthorse hide,
were pregnant mare in palm to stand when whale his fingers plied,
did What-in-Wood a cross-brace swing to trapeze-levers steer,
a handle-net of knotted strings on which ’neath whale appeared
a puppet built from tackle-spring and corpse of Irish Deer.
Parbuckle’s sling in circus ring did lurching carcass rear.
The puppet, five yards hoof to beard, then stood on hindlimbs ‘top a pier,
well’s trestle-wharfs’ depending tiers—”
“Mine’s ladders-plank on which was circus set,” shouted Bludgeon,
twixt snow-girt groves of platforms’ starlit pines—”
“Like to winter maple’s longest branches,” whispered Agnes,
“or its loam-leafed tubers’ delving taproots,
did antlers’ copse from skull of deer extrude,
bones on which a wake of vultures brooded
hissing, wearing wattles’ steaming stoles of sick—”
“With stool of whale was deer embalmed,” burbled Bludgeon. “Whale’s dung
from frowning bung of puppet’s seams festooned,
a yellow paste on which antlers’ raptors,
climbing clotted clods of hair, dined like drones
dredging hive’s honeyed hexagonal combs.”
5.
Caper, clouting cakes ’gainst plate of palate,
did, o’er her bulging, battened belly, cluck:
“His periwinkle pelt, a wrinkled rind,
harlequin pachyderm Wimple Stopknob
did, to the circus water organ wield,
wear protheses, tin to great-toed plinth-paws
tied, gloves of pegbox, string and hammer, hands
in cuff of keyboards’ pillory enclosed.
Stopknob, tricorn head in stocks ensnared, played
calliope in forest Underfair.
Wimple’s hippopotine tusks, gums’ gudgeon
axles anchored wheels on whose circumference
winding, did wet webs of iron wires
turn. Incisors’ gear-in-gob, spun by bob
of Stopknob’s bite, incited bellows’ blast.
Elephantine ears, twine, waxen batter,
forming Wimple’s pleated bellows’ bladder,
were, through eardrums’ pursing valves, with ivory
clouds of snow engorged. Sack’s disconsolate
contractions squeeze then through nose’s nozzles
sneezed burning steam to bore of organ fill.
On yawning peaks of Stopknob’s organ pipes,
pit’s fluted pikes of parchment, plank and paste,
were gaping beaks of feathered whales affixed.
Cetaceans’ severed muzzles’ singing reeds,
organ’s pedal-pulleys’ baleen whistles
did, draft through rings of humpbacks’ larynx drawn,
a barcarole’s befogging dance perform,
recital during which, I with Bludgeon
was, beneath stand of snow-clad pines concealed.”
