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The Thorn Merchant's Right-Hand Man Well, that's Pretty Boy Emeritus alias Leo the Machine, great-grandson of Eddie the Immune, a real ladies' man in his handmade elevated Spanish shoes. It's funny how he walks into town with just a bouquet or violin & lost faces reappear, eclipsed by fedoras in bulletproof limousines. A looted brain case succumbs & a cage of prayers sways in night air. Pretty Boy throws a kiss to death, a paradoxical star in each eye. Naturally he's surprised when he stumbles & snags his suit coat on an ice pick. It had to happen. He's caught in a Texaco john humming the Mass in D. The fight moves out to the corner of Midsummer Avenue & Galante Blvd. like two men tussling with red lanterns. Pretty Boy's shoelaces tied together, the full moon behind flowering manzanita deserts him with his tongue in pawn clear down to where a plea forms the root word for flesh. 91 from I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head ...

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