After Bruegel

by Charles Bernstein

A wall with cracks
cares not whose
house is burning as
long as the light
shines through.
If the spoils lead
the spoiled, the
journey would never
begin. Who knows
why the latch’s
left open when the
pig’s turned upside
down? (Fear makes
the burning house
burn brighter.)
The scissors and
the herring are
unreliable partners,
while the broomstick
and the toothache
piss against the wind.
There is a hole in the patch!
Dead center is neither
flush nor foul, but live
targets sing in tune to
the lost freighter.
Then again, the joker
suffers because they
know where truth lies.
The stupider the man,
the more he proclaims
his prowess. As if to say:
Shooting the roof
wounds the rooster
while shooting the floor
riddles the foundation.
In other words, a wheel’s
spoke is worth its weight
in candles, just as cranes
in slow motion separate
goose from cormorant
and tact from elision.
Metaphor, that is, bedevils
facts, just as justice
undermines law.
(Socialism in one
country is like
having a best
friend from Canada.)
—A clown is a
fool or aspires
to be. A fool’s
blessing is better
than a priest’s
despair but not
as useful as a
slap in the face.