On the Beauty of Unlaid Eggs

(for Hugo Ball)

Let the mind rollick on clay wheels fired sterling by the sun.
Let it roll with buttered theory through the ancestral bogs
of its homeland and then erupt into sweaty calisthenics.  
Slice open the oranges, there are tears inside, and numerals 

tattooed on the curious trumpets of our eyes. The countless 
directives of the mind compel me. But toward what, and why? 
Possibility in and of itself is an ideal scenario. There, you’ll find 
no foreheads pruning away in worry or freak-out tents sullying   

its untrammeled terrain, and yet the forked catechisms of old 
dialogues endure. She told me that she had decided to name 
the groundhog Waldorf as if this explained everything away, 
and now, like a pair of lurching fiefdoms with a nebulous past,

finally we could both move on. The mind does not recognize
such arbitrary distinctions, the mind kicks like a giraffe and it 
counts, passages blocked by a column of salts and beaded 
dollops of a questionable cream. Fundamentally, it’s a mess.

We approached the monolith wearing cumbersome asbestos 
bibs and a variety of pot metal hats, our thoughts muddled
like wilted penne in a barrel of steam. Clipped and stuttered,
the speech of each instant places yet another demand on our 

attention. It’s the cannibalism of time, and Lost King Forward 
drives a silent bargain home. There are far too many pencils
to count. Too many eggs to shoulder through the zero. Let
the mind unravel in itself, the final cable from its last cabaret.

Jeffrey Little | Contents
Mudlark No. 77 (2024)