Surrealist Sonnet

Clark Ashton Smith

The lyrebird giblets in the frying-pan
cheep crisply to the sibilant blue gas.
A Congo mouth gulps a blonde demitasse,
then spews on the flowered rug from Ispahan.
Rome's red flamingo feathers wave their fan:
while stilt-legged craw and stomach sac alas
march down beneath aforetime's blear morass
bannered with mildewed naperies of man.

But brandished over stale antiquities
still rise the verdant hones of gluttonies
flying the parchments of new horoscopes.
The sage arachnidan from Regulus
amid its souvenirs on raddled ropes
will haply hang some dried esophagus.

Printed from: eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/561
Printed on: March 29, 2024