Captain Whale

Here comes Captain Whale. Captain Whale ruins everything he tries to do. He tried to bake blueberry muffins, but he put in hydrogen sulfide instead of baking powder so they came out smelling like turkey butt. He tried to cut a fish out of sequined material, but a huge purple eagle flew by and grabbed his hair by the talons and then dropped him. Captain Whale’s arm jerked around and he accidentally cut out a flamingo. One day, Captain Whale had to do the most important job in the whole 4th grade class: lunch duty. If anyone was getting rowdy or throwing food during lunch, Captain Whale had to nip it in the bud, quick as a peashooter. Captain Whale stood on duty, his whistle in hand. Sally Seastar lifted her peanut butter sandwich into the air. She flicked her wrist, launching the sandwich straight at Andy Anemone’s face. But Captain Whale grabbed it while it was still in the air. “NO FOOD FIGHTS,” he said, in his sternest and most intimidating of voices. Andy lifted a grapefruit in the air. He flung it straight at Captain Whale’s back. But Captain Whale jerked around and caught the grapefruit in his baleen. “I SAID NO FOOD FIGHTS!!!” Captain Whale bellowed. Andy whimpered. Sally sulked. And Captain Whale had successfully completed lunch duty. After school, he ran home, looked in the mirror, and flexed his biceps. He admired his shiny white baleen and his handsome head of hair. “I can do anything!” thought Captain Whale. “I’m no longer cursed!” He had a great night’s rest, with beautiful dreams about Hawaiian princesses and 3-layed cheesecake. In the morning, he said, “I can bake blueberry muffins!” But he couldn’t. They came out smelling like turkey butt.

The Cactus And the Lizard

So I’m gonna tell you a story. It’s a story about a very small lizard.
Three feet long. Little pink tongue. Top hat. Nails painted purple. Lizard
lived in a ditch next to a convenience store. He usually ate the hot dogs that
were left in the trash at the end of the day. He also liked blue slushies,
Reese’s peanut butter cups and dead monkey brains.
One day the lizard, whose name was Cornelius Frantuckus, was going
on a walk to see his good friend Monchocolo the Hare, and on the way he
saw something rather unusual: a dancing cactus.
The cactus said,
“Cornelius, would you join me in this dance?”
and Cornelius looked into the cactus’s blue glimmering eyes and said,
“There is only one ocean of consciousness, but there are two joint
wooden pieces.”
And by the joint wooden pieces he was referring to himself and the
cactus, and by the ocean of consciousness he referring to something he heard
some drugged up hippie talking about at the convenience store.
So the cactus and lizard danced. The danced the tango and the polka and
the waltz, and at the end the lizard looked into the cactus’s eyes and said,
“My dear, you have so much to live for. Why did the petals of your
soul drift slowly through the wind like freedom on the wings of dying dove?”
And the cactus didn’t say anything, but merely held the lizard close to
his breast, and stroked his lizard hair, and tickled his lizard tummy and said,
“Don’t leave me, because I feel our separation would be like division
of one grain of sand, and if you divide one grain of sand, there is nothing to
keep the earth from falling apart.”
So the cactus and lizard lived together like one united grain of sand.
They went to cactus-lizard dancing competitions across the nation and even
took blue ribbons sometimes, but it didn’t matter. The cactus liked
butterscotch ice-cream. The lizard liked peppermint ice-cream. Neither of
them liked fluffy pillows. They both liked the kind that had a little bit of
oomph to them. And they lived for many years as a happy couple, and one
day they went back to the convenience store and there was a robbery.
There was a large walrus looking man with a mask and a gun and a
rope of licorice and he was holding up the cashier, who was an old man,
almost a hundred years old, whose name was Friedman Friedman. And the
lizard and the cactus marched on in, wearing the cowboy boots and spurs.
And the soundtrack kicked in which was a song from an old John Wayne
western. And then there was a shootout, and by shootout I mean the robber
was shooting at things, and the cactus was jumping on the robber, putting
his spikes in his butt, and now the robber was a real bad shot because he was
missing an eye from a time a Siamese cat clawed him real bad. Didn’t have
no depth-perception, know what I’m sayin? So he ran out of the convenience
store with spikes in his butt, and lizard spat at him as he ran, and the lizard,
his spit burned into his skin like hot skillets and he collapsed to the ground
and was buried by divided pieces of rock.
The cactus and lizard were heroes. They even got their pictures put
up on the front door of Walmart. But they still weren’t happy. They felt
something was missing. So they called up an astronaut. And they said,
“Mister Astronaut Sir, with your muscley legs and your smart sciency
brain, and your oxygen helmet, we feel like something is missing in our
lizard-cactus relationship, and we were wondering, since you got such
muscley legs, and such a sciency brain, and such an oxygeny, helmet if you
could maybe give us, uh, some pearls of wisdom, since you’ve seen the earth
from outer space and all?”
And the astronaut cleared his throat, and he drank some grape juice,
and he scratched his groin and he said that earth from space is nothing more
than the last lick of ice-cream: it’s beautiful, but it can’t last.
The cactus sobbed, and the lizard wailed, and they both licked each
other until they could lick no more, and passed away in each other’s arms.

The Final Ablution

I knew a potato named Doyle

Who noticed his skin had got soiled

He bathed in a pot

Which we turned up to hot

And then ate the poor gentleman broiled.

Old Man Sitting on Park Bench

When the pigeon perceived me
Just what did he see?
Does he know that I’m breathing?
Did he recognize me?

Did he notice my hair?
Or my soft, wistful mood?
Did he see a potential
Dispenser of food?

Did he see me as threatening?
Did he see me as kind?
Did he think I was cute?
Was he reading my mind?

Did he see me, perhaps
As a pigeon as well?
Does he know I’m a man?
Do you think he could tell?

Did he see that I’m old?
Did he see that I’m tall?
Or maybe he just
Didn’t see me at all

The Halloween Grinch

Beware the Halloween Grinch

He really is the worst

He shows up every year

Around October 31^st

He goes around to every house

And steals all the treats

Replacing them with collard greens

(Such nasty things to eat!)

He blows lights out of pumpkins

And he tears down spider webs

And before it’s even 8 p.m.

He sends the kids to bed

He banishes the ghouls and ghosts

And locks bats in their caves

He sends the zombies and

The skeletons back to their graves

He scrapes caramel off the apples

And paints the black cats white

He even shoots down witches

As they fly across the night

He rips the masks off children

And he edits horror flicks

And he empties out the sugar

Out of all the pixie sticks

He coats the streets with garlic

Keeping vampires at bay

And he’ll cover up the moon

So that the werewolves stay away

He’ll steal your toilet paper

So you can’t commit a prank

And he'll board up haunted houses

Using nails and a plank

And if your face is painted

He’ll scrub it clean with suds

And he steals all the ketchup

So you can’t make costume blood

With him around, the frights are gone

You’ll have no chance to scream

And that’s why he’s so horrible—

The Grinch of Halloween

The Teeter Second

It only takes a second

To teeter on a wall

That tiny teeter-second

And it’s right before you fall

The second can be split

Or the second can be flat

1 Mississipi’s all you got

Before you go ka-plat.

Herb in Esrevni Dnal

Herb McFee goes walking down

A something known as “Wall”

But is he there inside his head?

No, he’s not there at all

Inside his head he’s scampered off

To the land Esrevni Dnal.

In this strange land, the grass is blue

And grass-green are the skies

But Herbie can’t see anything

Unless he shuts his eyes

The sun is shining brightly

Which makes surroundings dim

And Herbie is annoyed

That all the trees are climbing him

So Herb jumps in a pond

Where swimming makes him dry

Then he’s overwhelmed with happiness

And begins to whine and cry

So he takes a boat across the land

And a train across a lake

Where he finds a lot of healthy food

Like jellybeans and cake

Then it’s 9 a.m., and the sun goes down

And Esrevni Dnal is still

And Herbie walks until he sees

A wall stuck in a hill

He wants to walk on top of it

So he runs across the lawn

Then he jumps on the wall in Esrevnie Dnal

And falls off the wall he’s on.