Nobody again

I found a skull on my mother’s old plank wood table
What year was this?
It was 1959

The skull that I saw through my aviators goggles was white
An old blues song emanated from the cranium, a little muffled
It was Mae West in a long red ballroom dress
She was dancing with a man in an old French suit and bow tie
It was Max Jacob the poet

As for the crystal ball I was holding, I quickly swallow it

I heard seagulls in chorus above me
Halleluiah they sang

Mr. Aztec came riding by on a ragamuffin donkey selling cheap watches

“Who are you today?” asked one of the seagulls
I am Balaam on his way to the cathedral in Rome
“Stop that man,” said one of the Keystone cops
“Yesterday he was Napoleon”

Max on the other hand started handing out prose poems from beyond the grave
Here is an imitation of one on cheap paper.
When you press the button it vanishes just like in real life

I moved about as a bundle of fur
Her long white hands reached out and grabbed me
Will this end here I asked the axe
It disappeared down the road in a blue taxi

Here is the blues, the whole blues
And nothing but the blues said Mae shooing away the seagulls

Then she said that she was really Luciano Pavarotti and began to sing Nesam Dorma
Her beard slipped down her face to reveal a Bob Ross painting of the Canadian Rockies
Then the whole world began to join in on a fiddle tune
And I felt like I was a nobody again

Time moves on like a lawn mower
Only the established survive