Prompt 19: Apolemia/Dylan ’61

That Siphonophore Apolemia looks like a wall
pulled down from a saloon
to make room for the sea urchin school –
they don’t have recess, but they swim
in algebraic equations.

A scientist told me that.

That Siphonophore Apolemia
shook itself loose from a candelabra in outer space
that no one had time to ship back to Macy’s
and now Santa can’t wrap Rudolph in anything
but a dimestore cheetah coat.

You don’t shuck an ear next to Siphonophore Apolemia
unless you know where the Algae Choir gets their husks.
They dance on ’em. Better than sand.
A cook’s tour guide said that,
but he’s anonymous for now.

Don’t forget to ask for Siphonophore Apolemia
at your ice cream and gadgets counter.
They’ll fill your dish and repress your refrigerator.

Let me have a light from that cig, will ya?
Is that a Siphonphore Apolemia lighter?
Those are keepsakes. [Pockets lighter.]
I have two cousins who married Apolemia’s sisters.
I don’t know what that makes us,
but they’re welcome to my neighbor’s guest room.

4 thoughts on “Prompt 19: Apolemia/Dylan ’61

    1. Oh, the animal was in the prompt, suggested by one of our fellow participants. In a million years, I wouldn’t have thought to write a poem about this creature. But, thank you.

  1. I was thinking of the Dylan who in the early 60s in the coffeehouses would go off on slight tangents in his delivery. Every marathon, there’s an hour I end up listening to Dylan, the early recordings and laughing outright at the gentle lunacy of his playful rambling. I wish I could do a Dylan imitation. I heard Joan Baez do one in an interview, but given their past she probably has a special – mmm? – dispensation to do so.

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