stormy weather

— for cab calloway, and
   for hepcats everywhere
when greymalkin fisticuffs
and his sidekick
gherkin fiddlesticks
flanked by kinktail
the celtic-knot-tailed tomcat
minnie the moocher
geechy joe
and the hi-de-ho man
jitterbugged
out of tornado and tinpan alley
frisking their whiskers
all caterwauling showmanship
beneath palm fronds
bristling into snarls
like rottweilers attacking
canine cottonwoods
fanged as that
hurly-burly banshee
the hound of the baskervilles
hickory branches
combative and massive
as the duo-octaval span
of fats waller's
short-lived stridemaster
fingers quipping and
barking an irrepressible
ain’t misbehavin'

in a withershins world
gone thesaural for wind
harum-scarum
a harmattan in manhattan
a brickfielder
togged to the bricks in brooklyn
a bedouin habob in hoboken
a helm of williwaw squalls
in harlem
a derecho in detroit
a chinook to shank chicago
a boogie-woogie barrelhouse
bora in battery park
coming on like gangbusters
out of the frying pan
into the fire
we leapt

with a full moon
livid as pinchbeck or yolk
all brandyfire
and crème brulée
so bedevilled were we
by the manhattan mountebank
of a mephistophelian chef
from hell's kitchen
that jerrybuilt
our gimcrack ramshackle
ramekins
could no longer protect us
from his conjuring
up a tornado
to wirewhisk
gilhoolie
and spatula
us away from our downhome
homebody ways
comfortable as casseroles
once he severed the chalazae
which anchored us
shattered
our vitelline membranes
fragile as
verrerie and verroterie
mongered our shells
for cascarones
and all out of countenance
and context
left us con abbandono
unkitchenered and unintact
as huevos rancheros
in a typhoon
blustered into an anemoi
of omelette
our boundaries churned
into a topsy-turvy
gustily gustatory
vangoghian free-for-all
of breakfast
a voluptuous scramble
of sunflowers stars
and albumen
flanked by scuppernongs
scumbled as succotash
hi-de-hoing
and susie-q-ing
in a joint-was-jumping
speakeasy of a still life
exuberant as satchmo
upstaging
the scuttlebutting sackbuts
and their skrittering affricatives
ballyhoo as the nicholas brothers
leapfrogging over each other
to land spatchcocked
into splits on a spiral staircase
bedazzling as bill robinson
bojangling percussive zapateados
on giant tomtoms
jubilant and jamboree
as cab calloway and his
maxim-gun vocal chords
scatting up a cyclone
zoot-suiting away
all consuetude
all desuetude
with duende
with pizzazz
with the daisy-mazey-crazy
of his zaz zuh zaz