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Table of Contents for Issue 22/23

This work first appeared in Gargoyle, issue #22/23. Please respect the fact that this material is copyrighted. It is made available here without charge for personal use only. It may not be stored, displayed, published, reproduced, or used for any other purpose without the express consent of the author or artist.

The Roland Kirk Story

Paul Grillo

The mystery pipes have a voice like tobacco
Like turquoise mist in the trees
On the other side of silence
Where it's raining a whole restaurant of tophats
And a cache of slinky maple breezes
Are trimming the small-change lamps of the blind

Move on over give the traveler room
Watch the working girls count the keys to their war-chests
And the bus drivers toy with their centerfold hearts

Let the Friday Nite nightfall fall on its knees
Burn a blue & rose tattoo through the roof
Break out umbrellas over the El tracks
Wrap the basement belly in a kerosene sheet

The fat old root doctor flies from his perch
On thin black silk threads
Taking seven giant tongue-in-cheek steps
Through the rebuilt ghost towns of Buttermilk Bend
Magnified a billion times
Like a plexiglass teardrop melting over the corner
In the green groves of Pluto
Three times a breath

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