I: Authenticating an Audubon

Is it conceit, a fiefdom of definition,
a fictive explanation, a codeword imperative?
Must we rummage through a bijouterie,
suffer its custodian’s trophic acerbity --
the crystalline wiggins, the corduroy ottoman,
dandelion tea and Delft?

Skip the chromatogram, close the casebook,
engage no Jacobi inquest.
Courage! Simplicity! Swig the dose
and cranny the matchbook Camelot:
a Rhodes Landslide, a Pinball Townsmen,
a Thundershower on the Esplanade.

II: A Gangplank Near Nantucket

Alex and Jean meet like a metronome,
pockets stiff with triplex documentation,
conscious an aristocratic escutcheon is doubtful
as gild, borderland impracticable —
Persian carpet or not.

Shall a Haitian scold eardrum or cochlea
or a conscious contraption breathe of mullions and arches
by a riverine minnow-streamed Chaparral airstrip,
as somewhere a chimpanzee
passes the Turing Test?

Flann reads:

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