Unless you want
some kind of chicanery,
I’ll have none of that talk
in this house or even this yard.
Stickin’ with the trees
could be foolish
to the bully adolescents,
until they see none other
than their childhood idol
Billy Russell, man of stage and screen.
He could talk to them,
one would think,
and let them know
he admires his fans,
no matter how small.
In it went forever
in it went a cupboard
in it fell a tin cup
in it fell a whole man
in it stepped a mongrel
in it stepped a fox
in it rested something brassy
in it rested tubs of gin
in it, in it lay a glob of ham
in it strayed a lathed bedpost
in it prayed an elusive God
in it flayed a whittling boy scout
in it played a wounded knee’s thoughts
in it frayed a flag of dull nights
in it stayed all the philosophers.
It came past
to never or not
in the eyes
of the big one
in the sky,
but that didn’t
quite do it
anyhow anyway,
now did it?
Oh, no.
You can’t get away
that easy around here,
mister.
“Where do you keep your rat tippers?”
“I keep my rat tippers with my cow flippers, in the back-right corner of the pantry next to the party fixins. Why do you ask?”
“I really need something to get these rats off my case, especially because of this ingrown toenail I have. I can’t risk being caught with such vermin on my case, if you know what I mean.”
At this point, the two friends
must risk being caught in public
discussing rat matters,
which is a certain cause
for social suicide around these parts.
They are either totally secure
in their position
or unaware that such talk
could land them in the looney bin.
What are we melting here
when all the cheese
has been stolen anyway?
We need a common enemy,
or at least someone
to complain about
while we try out
new galoshes
in the mucky weather.
As long as our common enemy
has some kind of cheese stash,
I can absolutely get behind
verbal torture, like the kind
they had in the olden days,
the townspeople tossing tomatoes
and ethnic slurs
at the unfortunates
trapped in stocks
right in the middle of town,
the communal clock chiming
9am while the time is actually 8:47.
A cold little crouton prefers to be somewhat frozen over being baked into a melange of messes, and I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to dignify these oddball questions with suitable responses. I mean, half of my time has been spent trying to describe a heron’s flight patterns to preschoolers, and I can see that they’re really not getting it at all. No matter what color the heron or the wingspan, there is no way I can have an intelligent conversation with these ungrown little future senators and hot dog vendors. I might as well try to make friends with people my age and just be done with it already. I never thought building a giant monument to salad would be so damn tough.
Hounding the rose garden
with a turnip-snouted affair
could lead to regret
as long as you flub up
the orders coming in
at a mile a minute.
If you bring out
the best of the vichyssoise
for our esteemed colleague
on the day of his daughter’s wedding,
I’d say you’ll have
plenty of opportunities
to capitalize on his granting of favors.
First on the docket:
get that petty Ms. Nightingale
to put a lid on her trombone practice
between 8 and 9:30pm on Tuesdays.
WHARVED 