Royal Jelly

by Dan Bern

Mailboxes drip like lampposts
In the twisted birth canal of the coliseum
Rim job fairy teapots mask the temper-tantrum
O say, can you see 'em?

Stuffed cabbage is the darling of the laundromat
And the sorority mascot sat with the lumberjack
Pressing, passing, stinging
Half-synthetic fabrications of his time

The mouse with the overbite
Explained how the rabbits were ensnared
And the skinny scanty sylph thrashed the apothecary diplomat
Inside the three-eyed monkey within inches of his toaster-oven life

In my mind, I'm half-blind
My inner ref is mostly deaf
I'm smell-impaired, if you cared
My sense of taste is wasted
On the phosphorescent orange peels
Of San Francisco axe-encrusted frenzy
So let me touch you
Where the royal jelly gets made

Coloratura singers bringing weeds and social clingers
Hangers-on and fancy flingers to the dress ball
Mushrooms and bowling pins, stovepipe hats and other things
I can't recall from juvenile hall

We're so unlucky and stuff
Woodrow Wilson never had it so tough
Dairy Queen and Vaseline and Maybelline
Paul Bunyan and James Dean

Allegory agencies of pre-Raphaelite paganry
And Shenandoah tapestries compared with good mahogany
Collapsing the undying postcard romance

With feline perspicacity by the university
That night I held a paucity
Which you deemed common courtesy
I wasn't what you thought I'd be
I shouldn't have invited you to dance

In my tree I'm halfway free
And in my chair one-quarter there
In my dream one-sixteenth cream
In the coffee of the courtier
Of the sycophantic assistant to the king
So let me touch you
Where the royal jelly gets made