Tom Robbins - Wild Ducks Flying Backward

From behind a surf of clouds, the moon skitted into view like a boogie board. Cautiously, glancing left to right, the wolf set its treasure down on a fallen tree trunk, raised its muzzle toward the sky, and through dandelion parachutes of its own frozen breath, issued a long wail that sounded like the siren on a 6000-year-old ambulance.

Suddenly, the moon howled back.

For a long moment, the wolf held itself so still it might have been a cardboard cutout in a theater lobby (a sequel to Dances with Wolves, told from the animal’s POV). The hairs of its mangy pelt were as erect as toy soldiers. Its eyes turned radioactive. Its breath was no longer visible. Its lame leg ached. Involuntarily, it pissed in the snow, affixing a new and perhaps not-so-happy ending to the fairy story previously written there. The old wolf waited.

As for the moon, it too was still, at rest on a cloudtop like some buttered skillet in which Vincent van Gogh was frying an egg.

Gradually, the lunar silence reassured the wolf, for while it, like its ancestors before it, had spent its life addressing each full moon without fail, it had never once, not even when a cub, expected or desired a reply. If there was a response, it resounded in the blood, in the spinal fluid, in the wolf juice, not the ears. Wolves did the vocalizing. Among beasts, as among men, the moon was understood to be mute.

But was it? Had the moon merely been biding its time all these years, patiently waiting for the right moment to make itself heard?

The wolf was straining so hard to learn what might have finally loosened the moon’s tongue that it very nearly missed the small, squeaky voice that piped up only a few inches from its nose.

“Well,” said the little heart, which had unobtrusively begun to beat again, puffing itself out like self-blowing bubblegum, “now that you’ve gotten the news, don’t you think you ought to return me to the breast from which I was ripped?”

Although hungry and perplexed, and despite the fact that its conscience was as clean of guilt as a nun’s bratwurst of mustard, the old wolf wearily complied, limping down the mountainside, squirming under the locked gate of the village, clambering atop a snowdrift, and stealing for the second time that night through a half-open nursery window.

And the next morning, my christening took place as scheduled.

Drawn by the bloomy lights

of Honolulu,

the giant passenger moth

flies for a thousand miles,

through typhoon spray and volcano smoke,

sailors firing at it for sport,

barracuda snapping at its ass;

until, at last,

frazzled of antenna, salty of wing,

it wobbles into brief climactic orbit

around the 500-watt

coconut:

bachelor at a wedding

the bride never knew.

(Headline in an Italian fashion magazine)

Yeah, I guess I’m ready, but listen:

Perfume is a disguise. Since the middle ages, we have worn masks of fruit and flower in order to conceal from ourselves the meaty essence of our humanity. We appreciate the sexual attractant of the rose, the ripeness of the orange, more than we honor our own ripe carnality.

Now, today, we want to perfume our cities, as well; to replace their stinging fumes of disturbed fossils’ sleep with the scent of gardens and orchards. Yet, humans are not bees any more than they are blossoms. If we must pull an olfactory hood over our urban environment, let it be of a different nature.

I want to travel on a train that smells like snowflakes.

I want to sip in cafés that smell like comets.

I want to sleep in hotels that smell like the pheromones of sixteen-year-old girls.

Under the pressure of my step, I want the streets to emit the precise odor of a diamond necklace.

I want the newspapers I read to smell like the violins left in pawnshops by weeping hobos on Christmas Eve.

I want to carry luggage that reeks of the neurons in Einstein’s brain.

I want a city’s gases to smell like the golden belly hairs of the gods.

And when I gaze at a televised picture of the moon, I want to detect, from a distance of 239,000 miles, the aroma of fresh mozzarella.

(Country song)

My wife up and left me a long time ago,

it’s just as well that she’s gone.

I’ve smoked out my windpipe with cheap cigarettes,

I can barely sing you this song.

But last night I saw more strange lights in the sky,

got so excited I thought I would die,

and it gave me the strength to go on.

I got a car with no brakes or transmission,

I usually travel by thumb.

Since I walked out on that job laying carpet

I’ve felt a bit like a bum.

But when I think of that great whirling saucer

and all the things it surely will offer,

my heart starts to beat like a drum.

Some people think I’m a leftover hippie, a loser, a drifter, or worse.

But I’m just a loner from Sedona, Arizona,

the center of the known universe.

I met a blonde in a bar up near Phoenix,

thought I’d found someone to love.

But when she laughed at me I climbed on a bridge,

hoping whiskey’d give me a shove—

— cause a cowboy with no job and no money

can’t expect to convince any honey

that his friends rule the earth from above.

(SPOKEN)

The whole world’s howling like a Tijuana dog,

everthing’s a little bit insane.

Them spaceships had better hurry on down and get me,

before I drown in this hard-hearted rain.

But, hey, I just got the message that they’re a-gonna,

they’re a-gonna land right here in Sedona, Arizona,

And we can say adios to our pain.

Now some people think I’m a leftover hippie, a loser, a drifter, or worse.

But I’m just a loner from Sedona, Arizona,

The center of the known universe.

She went to the School of Miss Crocodile,

learned to walk backwards,

skin a black cat with her teeth.

Soon, she could dance with dead pirates,

cook perfect gumbo,

telephone the moon collect.

But it took 23 doctors to fix her

after she kissed that Snake.

Sinking his fingers

like rat fangs

into the round black cheese

(O moon that orbits Milwaukee!)

he heaves it onto

the path

the Tao

the waxy way

at whose end there awaits

amidst thunder

the ten buddhas.

The invitation to

Tarzan’s bar mitzvah,

written in nut juice

and wrapped in a leaf

Arrived in my mailbox

with an organic rustle,

smelling of chimp dung

but promising a feast

And evoking immediate

hot hoppy visions:

The hair of the cannibal

and the sweet of the beast

(Country song)

My love looks in the window and watches you sleep,

can’t you hear it scratching at your door?

My love howls at the full moon down by the creek,

it ain’t for sale in any store.

My love is a wild thing and it can’t be trained

to do tricks to entertain your group

so put away that leash and that hoop:

my heart is not a poodle.

My love is wild, hog wild,

it ain’t for a sissy or a child,

it’s the hot stuff, not the mild,

don’t treat it like a poodle.

You can housebreak your puppy, you can housebreak your cat