WHARVED

Transit

In transit around town
is a yellow pigeon’s beak,
filled with licorice
and about to lose its positioning
upon said bird’s face.

Where it wants to go is a question
for a different time and place,
like, say, a cathedral
on the Wednesday following Easter.
We mustn’t worry about such details
before we see where the pigeon ends up
and how long its beak stays attached.

The licorice is the original black
that aficionados swear by,
but casual eaters poo-poo.
A store of this candy has recently
been made accessible to midsize
sugar-craving urban birds.

There’s a fresh hole in the roof
of a local confectioner’s shop,
a hole the size of a catcher’s mitt
which nobody can explain.

The Widget Farmers

I entered a rainy rendezvous, a bleary and running coup. The pickles were rancid from negligence; I stood in the corner, pinching my nose and waiting for the act to begin.

Slowly but surely the widget farmers came out to till the soil, checking the ripeness of their pocket calculators to see if the nines had filled in yet (they’re always the last digit to mature). Unsatisfied with the progress, they began to slink away.

I stomped and they froze. I got a good look at them. This particular shift of agrarian laborers numbered about twenty-three. Mostly human with odd rat snouts, they seemed to be miniaturized versions of the farmers I’d known from my disavowed youth.

The tallest one stood head and shoulders above the rest and wore a decorative sash that read “MAYOR”. I didn’t know whether this one had been elected or simply bullied his way to the top.

——

Originally featured as a draft on Wharved in August of 2013, published in issue 87 of Crack the Spine, October 30, 2013.

Lighter

I left a lighter in the side pocket of one of my favorite pairs of pants. Now, which lighter and which pair of pants? I don’t know. There are dozens of possibilities, and I haven’t cleaned my room for three weeks. For all I know, I won’t be able to find what I’m looking for until I’ve dug my way down to the bottom of my dirty laundry pile, launching said pile’s contents all across the room as I search. Even then, it’s not guaranteed that I’ll be thorough enough in searching to say with confidence that I’ve exhausted my options once the full pile of clothes has been torn up. I could have missed a pocket in a pair of pants while rifling through, facilitating another pursuit and forcing the question: do I really need to smoke that cigarette right now anyway? I could be spending this time cleaning my room once and for all (at least the one time for at least another three weeks). Oh, forget it. It’s time for a much-needed nap.

Basking

“Dutiful tin cups push us all into the water hazard that houses several above-average octopi who hide until disrupted by our splashing.” You lapse back into languagelessness after you’ve come up with a decent sentence regarding the state of the universe. Since you’ve now done your job for the day, you can sit expressionless in the corner, wondering why words are so difficult to come by all of a sudden.

“Talk? Me? Why do I need to open my trap? Is it required of me as a human being to jabber on about my situation, even if I don’t fully grasp what my condition is? Are people content to fill the silence with their voices, even if what they’re saying doesn’t mean anything? That seems like an exercise in futility to me. Oh crap, I’ve just filled up this once-golden silence with my whining, haven’t I? Well, at least nobody’s here to judge me based on my word vomit.”

An iguana has been basking in the sun this whole time. It would happily remind the human that a witness has been present from the start, but it just wouldn’t feel right to fill up this glorious new silence with more superfluous language. It continues to bask in silence.

Cliché to Nobody

“Method leads to madness,” uncle Pritchard told me one afternoon while I was struggling to write a single sentence that even remotely inspired me. He’d caught me staring into space while hovering over my notebook, pen at the ready (mind, not so much). He took it as his mission to get me going, so he proceeded to spout a number of phrases that were cliché to nobody but him. “Never break out the driver when a two iron will do. Sugar doesn’t melt, it gets better. All animals wind up orphans if everything goes to plan.” He continued on for what felt like hours, though it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. I eventually said “screw this” and ordered us a pizza, no worthwhile words inked.

Magic Mink

I’ve always said to myself that he’d make a fine coat if worn during the autumn months, draped across my shoulders. He would also make a fine blanket around that time of year, depending on the form he wants to take. He tends to surprise me with his various interpretations of shape. I just worry that he may avoid making contact with me, he’s usually on his own and wary of my advances. Even saying hello can be considered a violation of personal space. You know how the old phrase goes: the more magical you are, the more you wish folks would just leave you alone.

Grove

I left a seed
(a kernel of truth)
behind in the busted old car
that’s been put out to pasture
near a grove of lemon trees.

It won’t be long now
before it finds a place
to sprout and make
that hollowed-out corpse
of an automobile
relevant again,
at least to the bees.