Hilocometoot

Hilocometoot

Have you heard of a Hilocometoot?
(Pronounced “high-low-come-toot”.)
That special beast, the place where you must go to see one:
you must journey to your mind.

“Did you read in it the papers, T.H.,
they spotted one out west of town!”
Unsuspecting strangers, he would ask in total seriousness.
Red-faced while overhearing, must suppress my tell-tale smirk!
And he in fact would go so far as to commence a sketch!
Not first a graphic artist, would create a crude abstraction,
with specific motions. Still possess some of these drawings
that he drew with his own hand,
and reproduced it once by my own hand.
I have drawn a Hilocometoot!
Copied to you with this poem.
Even skeptics would believe his tale.
Mike’s joking was convincing.
His special marks, the proud, denied their lack of knowledge
of this creature that Mike’s dad did conjure clean from his imagination.
We would laugh and laugh at their absurd pretension.

Here is a ticket to the zoo, I hand it to you now,
take it, completely free, but you must listen to my words,
comprising breath and modulation of vibrations
infused with meaning, massive processors housed inside our skulls.
My cannabinoid receptors fully charged with rocket fuel.
I tell you of Hilocometoot, but acknowledge this up front:
comedic talent lacking, but I have a great desire,
and am losing inhibitions.
Become a magick actor, would channel them in secret séance,
men who passed just for your entertainment
if through my possession you might be moved
to start to listen to the stories you can tell,
the ones that move your heart and mind and groin.
Invite me to the zoo in your imagination.

His father took him and his brother too,
to zoo in father’s mind,
with words at bedtime, spoken sweetly to his sons.
Lights in room have dimmed.
Illuminated by a single lamp upon the nightstand.
I do have pictures, paintings that reflect
what I imagine of this creature.

I wear Raymond’s ring upon my pinkie.
The man who gave a special gift to me
in Mike, of course, but through him too.
The best, I would suppose, this story of a beast
most rare and imaginary.
Like Chupacabra or Sasquatch,
but this one, more of a cross
between ostrich and velociraptor.

At the moon, would howl a lonely howl
in the dry, west Texas nights.
Maybe like the whistle of a train?
Raymond for a time lived as a hobo,
and looked out from his seat on boxcar threshold,
rolling through the moon-lit landscape,
travelling to see his love, Mike’s mom, Miss Kitty,
imagining that he may have seen one
dart beneath the cactus.

I peer into the past and what then would I see?
What then would appear before me but this beast?!
Would channel this man through his ring,
I wear it now, would turn it twice
and conjure up a secret spell myself
to draw into the light this creature that retreated once again
into the cactus, fleeing from my probing sight!
I would display Hilocometoot to you,
from within my special zoo!!
Invite you in, I will describe
just as Mike’s dad did to him
and to his older brother, Robert.
These brothers, I see my sons in their two faces,
photos of Mike and Bobby when they were young.

My sons know of Hilocometoot.
My older son knows better.
My younger son, not grasped it yet.
I guess became an older man before the age of one.
Doesn’t hunger for the stories,
but I always will be present.
When those pangs might tear through stomach into heart
and move him thus as I move now.
Would reach out to them somehow, love them,
just as I loved Mike and Bobby,
and their father through them,
though I never met him.
Just as I do love my father,
and I know him quite directly.

This bedtime story Raymond told them,
imaginations invigorated for the sweetest dreams.
Pecking ostrich head made out of howling puppet hand,
with fingers joined together,
with glee would tickle each boy’s neck
and make them laugh, and love their father dearly.

Mike loved his father, I know that of a fact.
Just as I would love my sons (and daughters), so did Raymond love his boys.

Just as Mike was loved by his own father,
I am deeply loved by mine.