Category: Numbered

I lost the gift of written language, so I grabbed a ring-tailed lemur and put it in front of a television for inspiration. It couldn’t focus, even when the channel was changed to other lemurs. It looked quizzically up at me as if to say, “what, you expect me to be interested in this crap? Come on, I move around in trees for a living. My attention would normally be fixed on what to eat next, but you’ve been feeding me pretty regularly so I just plain don’t care about anything anymore.”

The cost
of a box of pens
and a stack of
blank paper
is minimal
compared to the
immense joy and
satisfaction of
having created
images and language
that can benefit
the world.

The spindly arms of the
glazed bean-eating warble-wearer
flap wildly in the wind,
floppy appendages
good for expressing emotions
in lieu of of articulating
intellectual positions.
Trembling in the breeze,
those arms can indicate excitement,
disappointment, hunger
and even bewilderment in a pinch.

The bindle on your shoulder
contains all the implements
necessary to start a new life:
a razor, an old newspaper,
a tin of peanuts, a crumpled greeting card,
six or seven packing peanuts,
a fork, knife and napkin.

You can pick up anchor and float
to any destination you so choose,
soliciting the help of kind souls
along the way, never wavering
from your pilgrimage to nowhere special.

This little pint-sized skillet
takes the cake when it comes to
political treachery, lest you all
forget what happened on the night
of the great cupcake bake-off
last November. An implement
for destruction rather than
ingredient infusion, the greasy pan
struck a blow to our nation’s temple
and declared itself ideal, a tool
for the youth to look to as a reflection
of intolerance in the name of prosperity
and entitlement, teaching the lesson that
if you’re born with means, you can make
a goddamn mess out of everything you do
and still be considered successful.

Uncouth youths
named Ruth,
in truth,
don houndstooth
to soothe
tollbooths.