Timothy Liu Ruminates on Timmy Straw’s ‘The Thomas Salto’ in Five Short Lyrics

 

The Thomas Salto.
 
Timmy Straw.
 
Fonograf Editions.
 
978-0578358543

 

 

Timothy Liu Ruminates on Timmy Straw’s The Thomas Salto in Five Short Lyrics

 

 

READ MY LIPS

 

This blockbuster
debut is so far

 

down the God hole

 

it’s like watching
the Gipper

 

riding bareback

 

on an X-Wing
to the Death Star’s

 

anal fissure

 

at its Hollywood
conclusion—

 
*
 

UNTIL NOW

 

 

Shall we try
to stick

 

this landing

 

without blurbs
on the jacket

 

but splattered

 

anyways
across a dark web

 

page sort of

 

like having your
Chicken Kyiv

 

and eating it too

 

in Putin’s Kremlin
is something

 

said no one ever—

 
*
 

HOLY MOLY!

 

An overnight sensation
more private
than any dream that will

 

not repeat

 

no matter how much
money you’ve got
in the bank—talk about

 

pedophile clickbait

 

disposable as the thing
we’re not going to
talk about this year

 

however unintended

 

the consequences are—
mommies grooming
kidfluencers on X

 

while local library sales

 

continue to plummet—
unmarked second-hand
Bibles all ten bucks

 

because the gender-

 

neutral worker who works
there didn’t want to
mar them (they said!)

 

out of mere respect.

 
*
 

OUR LOVE’S IN JEOPARDY, BABY

 

is “an exclamation
of surprise” that dates

 

from at least 1982—

 

most likely “a minced
oath or a cleaned-

 

up version of a taboo

 

phrase” like Holy Fucking
Moses with flaming

 

cherries on top—

 
*
 

 

ANOTHER WET DREAM

 

I awoke to bite marks
in my bookmark left

 

by a cat who strayed

 

beneath the covers
with great piquancy

 

but gentler than that—

 

little knowing winks
some knew would get

 

to me given enough

 

time—a punched
ticket for a train there

 

was no way I could

 

ever reuse on the way
back from a place

 

I had already come.