December 12th, 1940
by and published in Edition Six of Pomegranate
For H.W.
Edward VII and Philanthropy and all the gang
are smothered in yellow fat
as if they planned to spring to life
and swim the English Channel, playing at bronze golem
or tin soldiers. Marmalade
may be the last breakfast of kings
but this is the drunken fry-up from hell:
somebody broke 500lbs of phosphorous
over the debutantes’ ball like a giant egg
and the sweet smell of burning bacon makes
passers-by salivate and vomit
all over their patent leather shoes six decades later.
They pulled statues and monsters from the rubble – all the pretty people of the steel city – and
the tram conductor steeplechases up the tracks
to turn the points off because someone has to
and the world is ending. He’d forgotten he was
dead already in two pieces on the pavement
which was like an ice rink but on fire,
but then in the conflagration so had everybody else.
Anthony Adler
Anthony Adler was born, once.