waiting for a seat at the pancake house

dead butterfly washed ashore in Long Branch
charred driftwood of gnarled complexion
what collision of malevolence condemns ye
to this inglorious pallor?  you are but inches
from the empty Surf Taco cup to whom
you might have entreated timely intervention
to prevent your demise, your plummet from regality.
you are but meters from sand-scrawled inscription:
“Mom and Dad, I love you s — “, final marks of squandered vitality
perhaps engulfed by voracious undertow.
you are but a toss of shell from a photo shoot where
“normal women” in one-piece swimsuits
reign iconoclastic, whose empathy could be
easily conjured by a flutter.
oh, but what concern should I for the dictates of
omniscious craft and feverish rake of fancy,
for I am a beetle without a shell, lucky just to
get a parking space for my horse-drawn rocket
so I may scour the brink for orts of glittering flotsam
for my fish-bowl of antiquity and schadenfreude.
alive is the emptiness of Warhol’s Requiem
and tip of the White Sox cap to thee –
as the gossamer of my own incontestable whimsy
beckons gallivant about the campus of Monmouth
to Find the House Where Daddy Warbucks Lived
and use the bathroom. did you ever see “Annie”?
I saw Aileen Quinn before she went to Jersey City.
cineri gloria sera est.  let your repose be gratified
by my oath of eulogy, to pave the road with your ashes.
I’ll tell the tale after I empty my sneakers.