Vowelhalla

Atlanta grandmas brawl,
swamp pasta a carb scam.
Canada’s radar vast, Clark,
stack dart racks, asap. Carl
Sagan has a Dada salad and
sassafras bath, Star Wars bantha
fast as Shawshank chaff. Axl cracks
Slash’s harp, Babar snarks, alas pax’s
mandalas at-bat. Jazz? What band?
Waspgap. Past fad, glass lava
lamp. Bad crap? Frack a match.

We veer tenses, preserve the meme crème.
Trench defense, then mend shelled gents.
Reddened tree, less DDT. Hex themes:
green men, elf teeth. Feeble NFL?
Seven referees preen—Beck’s feck-
less MP3, deeded breeze. Need
med help? Fetch Weed Cheeks.
Renée’s re-wed. Better Zen.
Chess sex? Tenth Street
Best Western. Feed
me crepe Swedes,

bring mild dill chips. Smiling
knight licks wrist, king dips.
Drill-bit flight crisis, blimp
flings six wild imps. Bling
mint sticks with ribbit grip,
pill-biting kid nil dint.
Bi picnic?! I’ll cling, sit,
tip. Mimic’s whiz, krill-zilch.
Hijinks wish? Smith’s lip.
Bib grit—stiff Jiff. Ibis’s
wi-fi riff? Nimh film clip.

Forgo frown logos, fob-
born volts. Ox boots took
hold, zoo mop scorns colts.
Bro, do mono jog of rondo
noll. Noon pot-blog, so-so.
Fjord rocks Borgo. Mold knots host,
pom-pom brooms moon, Robocop
prompts school toll. Owl blog
molts pro-bono cod for tomb slob.
Tomorrow on Rod’s show,
Bozo’s cookbook, Clown Grog.

Bush funds pug rumpus, Jung blurbs
tutu cult. USB kunst stuff: gnu lust-
skunk’s drug-buzz grunt. Fungus
suburb hubbub blurs much gust.
Julz’s hunch? Lung club’s just
stump dust. Shlub lunch plus Tums
brunt, sums church up; UV stud trusts
burn shunt. Judd numbs, Curt guns
brunch. Dung grubs burst, such
burrs hurt tux plums für juju cusp.
US un-UNs, junk truck succumbs.

Cures for Acute Macular Neuroretinopathy

the spit of a comic book collector, his dozen X-ray glasses melted into telescope

spackle and corneal tambourine

miniature MRI implanted in socket like cigarette butt to coral reef

lashes grafted from world’s oldest optometrist reachable by synesthesia gondola

prayer chain, then iris

brow dye stolen out of moldy revival tent, aka Jesus’s Just for Men

blindfold bathed in anther broth preceding lunar eclipse

retina tangoing Lasik if the soap opera was Cataracts or Glaucoma Jeremiad

…

see the mountain tram,
crossed skis a love letter’s
half-ending

I can’t rappel
capillary snow

Disease-iversary with Hall & Oates &

Words, if I haven’t seen you in twelve months

there’ll be a period of mistaken.

Vaseline, I’ll pronounce you vase line.

Companion, champion.

What are relations but tournament?

It’s neurology, not lenses, that marks condolence.

The song barreling out of that $8 card?

“Private Eyes Without a Face.”

Billy-John-Daryl, how you play

in a Tucson eatery with croutons

spilt into sunflower seeds.

Bride of scotomas,

a slice of vision loss

to stare at each year.

Meringue replaces the maculae

that have literacy by the balls

of my eyes, paperback

rolled into telescope,

syntax mignoned.

Jon Riccio’s chapbook Prodigal Cocktail Umbrella was published by Trainwreck Press earlier this year. He received his PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers. He serves as a contributing interviewer for the University of Arizona Poetry Center’s 1508 blog.