A squirrel hurls
itself forth
from a blossom
of the eldest
poplar tree
in the vicinity
to a younger
specimen, digging
into the suppler bark
and scaling the tree
like it’s nothing
until it twitches
and clutches at air,
missing solid matter,
falls ass-backwards
for seventy-five feet,
and is caught
by a hiker who
saw this transpire
and thought about
letting the furball
drop to the ground–
it would have bounced.
You’re unsure
of what brought you
here as you stand
right next to the
secretary of a
highfalutin executive-type,
deftly denting
the coffeemaker
with a rubber mallet,
unwittingly uncovering
the rattling inner-workings
of that percolator’s psyche,
cracks and creaks
that were never meant
to come across
this superior’s oaken desk,
unsettling his thoughts
while a way to compete
with eastern markets
must be devised
before midnight tomorrow
or these investors
will be pissed.
“Mr. Gamble is trying
to have some peace
and quiet, sir.
I suggest taking
your rubber mallet
elsewhere for now.”
“Oh, this mallet
isn’t mine. I found it
on the floor
when I got here.”
“I thought it looked
familiar. I lost mine
an hour ago, thought
it ran away from me.”
No boar before
has benefited more
from practices of yore
than when bored
in a store, implored
to do chores
lest gore hit the floor,
pouring foreshortened spores
made to ward off a horde
of imported dull swords, moored
on an old shore
scored with sores–
lore that can’t be ignored.
Stretch into oblivion, carpenter ants
treading on you like a bridge. Know
when the chicken brains freeze
in the root cellar below your chin;
make a noise to show you understand.
Dig through your belly button lint
to uncover an ancient tome–often
misused and represented falsely
as a case study in human husbandry.
Read a popular passage that teaches,
“Never eat a stalk of wheat fresh
from the ground, rather make twine
from it and tie together your emotions
before you lose them entirely.”
Eager to toss down a bone or seven,
Champ quickened his pace on the way
to the recently-disrupted Indian burial ground,
his satchel weighed down
by clacking carpals and tarsals.
More bones should equal more peace
amongst the dead; the bones in Champ’s bag
were carelessly pilfered from less-volatile graveyards–
lands that won’t necessarily curse you
for doing a bit of harvesting here and there.
With a bone surplus approaching, the burial ground
may cease its treacherous hauntings
of the surrounding area (if the vigilant spirits
accept the new acquisitions as their own).
Then perhaps, finally, no more headless cow specters
mooing free jazz through their necks.
No more transparent locusts rustling around
with their sound magnified by all surfaces touched.
No more six-legged pumas with chainsaw growls,
stalking behind trees in the shadows.
Some locals swear they’ve heard an eerie chant
popping up over air waves and through plain thin air,
repeating itself, “Put us back where we belong or suffer,
put us back where we belong or suffer.”
In my effort
to be a good sport
about it all,
I forgot to take
the badgers into account.
I remembered the partridges,
jaguars and stoats,
the turkeys, oxen
and hamburger rats.
Even those mythical denizens
that I’d never thought
would spend their time
loafing around–
languid chipmunks, carnivorous deer,
handyman’s companion woodland porpoises.
I spent so much time
coming up with beasts
that I lost the line
between natural occurrence
and fairy tale claptrap.
I was up to my neck
in creatures both seen
and unseen when a platypus
splashed my face
with lukewarm water,
growling like a feral cat
and formally reminding me
that the badgers had started
gnawing at my ankle.
Excavated from under
the crust of civilization:
a common spearhead
with markings showing
its connection to a Pre-Colombian shaft
of certain aerodynamic worth.
It belonged to a shaman
who never used it
for anything more
than target practice;
he let his underlings
do the dirty work
while he contemplated
the universe’s tendency
to give humans more
than they can handle
at any given time,
for reasons unknown
to ancient and modern science.
WHARVED 