The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Lutefisk Lullaby

Swaddle the bloated cod well onioned
So turns the wheel of cheese wriggling
with zesty piquancy splayed into a garish 
charcuterie of muskiness unbuttoned 
to the utterly thirsty child of slumber
kneeling before the impending deluge 
of tinfoil-wrapped glitches syllsyllabilating
the demise of apple pie theolating 

-oh my, the tesselations lay so distant
noise having its way with the fading subharmonic
so deliciously gravid, I lay in the great 
shortcake strawberried to a whipped peak
too annointed by the overflowing of bloodletting-

The swollen teat of childhood logic enthralls
even the ascetic shaman divining the bifurcating
his weariness leans over into the spiraling
meteoric trail of peacock perfume inflammating, 
the choir sharpens the lutefisk's incisors
leaving leather loafers too tight to strut
oozing amber-dreamed nostalgia lulling the 
little ones to reach out flailing for just one
more quench of the oil creamy inspiration
commingled with my ground umber lazuliness
thumb-painted across my mental crucifixions
annointing the astral pilgrim to their task

so the lutefisk sings his frayed spinnings
into recursive amplifications who resonate
until the fabric fractures our departing
possibilities insufflating wounds into scalpels
to find a raspberry in the cereal bowl and
with it paint new horizons in ultramarine
wonder spreading across the musky marshland
strange peat bog of amazement where ball lightning
perseverates into mirrored wall writings pointing 
through the quicksilver mentating at the 
socks crumpled and held to my virgin nostrils 
oh, how I sing of the sweet and sour lutefish
whose incipherable lullaby lies as savory as 
salty among the wellering waves of the oceanic.
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