Beetlebung and Kettlehole--April Poems

Les Fleurs du Mal

Alert to hidden messages in things,
I search the pits of an apple.
Can a tree grow out of those? Even a forest?
Or something unidentified,
something I can use, akin to poise,
like a sandpiper’s
puff-breasted, snow-feathered, walking on stilts?

In the hyperspace of mind, The Alchemist *
whispers, “Why poise, though?
Why can’t you let go, and let it all hang out?”
I argue, “Oh, Dangerous One! Don’t you see
the value in interwoven signs in series?
Better than me bound to Bourbon,
if less than a pint.”

He shakes his red horns in disgust.
“Hypocrite! How unaware you are of your boredom,
the worst of miseries!”
__

         *Satan Trismegiste who addresses the reader in the beginning of Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire.

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Prompt: A fifth of bourbon, whatever that means