Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape

        The first of the undecoded messages read: “Popeye sits in thunder,
	Unthought of.  From the shoebox of an apartment,
	From livid curtain’s hue, a tangram emerges: a country.”
	Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: “How pleasant
	To spend one’s vacation en la casa de Popeye,” she scratched
	Her cleft chin’s solitary hair.  She remembered spinach
	 
        And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach
	“M’love,” he intercepted, “the plains are decked out in thunder
	Today, and it shall be as you wish.”  He starched
	The part of his head under his hat.  The apartment
	Seemed to grow smaller.  “But what if no pleasant
	Inspiration plunge us now to the stars?  For this is my country.”
	 
        Suddenly they remembered how it was cheaper in the country.
	Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a number 2 can of spinach
	When the door opened and Swee’pea crept in.  “How pleasant!”
	But Swee’pea looked morose.  A note was pinned to his bib.  “Thunder
	And tears are unavailing,” it read.  “Henceforth shall Popeye’s apartment
	Be but remembered space, toxic or salubrious, whole or scratched.”
	 
        Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums scratched
	Her long thigh.  “I have news!” she gasped.  “Popeye, forced as you know to flee the country
	One musty gusty evening, by the schemes of his wizened, duplicate father, jealous of the apartment
	And all that it contains, myself and spinach
	In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder
	At his own astonished becoming, rapturing the pleasant
	 
        Arpeggio of our years.  No more shall pleasant
	Rays of the sun refresh your sense of growing old, nor the scratched
	Tree-trunks and mossy foliage, only immaculate darkness and thunder.”
	She grabbed Swee’pea.  “I’m taking the brat to the country.”
	“But you can’t do that—he hasn’t even finished his spinach,”
	Urged the Sea Hag, looking fearfully around at the apartment.
	 
        But Olive was already out of earshot.  Now the apartment
	Succumbed to a strange new hush.  “Actually it’s quite pleasant
	Here,” thought the Sea Hag.  “If this is all we need fear from spinach
	Then I don’t mind so much.  Perhaps we could invite Alice the Goon over”—she scratched
	One dug pensively—“but Wimpy is such a country
	Bumpkin, always burping like that.”  Minute at first, the thunder
	 
        Soon filled the apartment.  It was domestic thunder,
	The color of spinach.  Popeye chuckled and scratched
	His balls: it sure was pleasant to spend a day in the country.