My Goblin Once Gobbled My Grandma

My goblin once gobbled my grandma

Right here on the living room floor

My parents said, “Take care of grandma.

We’ll be home in an hour or more.”

Well my goblin escaped from his basket

And attacked grandma’s very plump waist

He ate her except for her eyeballs

He must not have liked how they taste

So then I had just grandma’s eyeballs

All wobbly and weird, to be sure

And I dressed up my dirty old goblin

To look just a bit more like her

I made him take out his own eyeballs

And put grandma’s in, in their place

I added on lipstick and wrinkles

To re-create grandma’s dear face

Then I put him in one of her outfits

A particularly smelly old gown

And I gave him recordings of grandma

To play when my folks were around

Now my goblin agreed to this set-up

But he put one condition in place:

I have to keep feeding him grandmas

Or he won’t change his body or face

I said “Okay fine!” ‘cause that moment

My parents came home from their trip

They brought along Dad’s mom, Petunia

Who has a great mole on her lip

When my goblin caught sight of Petunia

I bet you can guess what he did

Now the rest of her lies in a coffin

With petunias engraved on the lid

And my goblin disguised as my grandma

Was carted right off to the jail

Then the cheeky chap phoned me and asked me

To send more grandma meat in the mail!

“You ate both my grandmas!” I told him

“A promise’s a promise,” he said

Then he growled, “You know I’m a goblin.

Break your promise, and son, you’ll be dead.”

Well, that gave me the heebies and jeebies

So I fled down to old Mexico

And I listen for old lady voices

Wherever I happen to go

‘Cause if I hear recordings of grandma

Saying, “Oh, that goes straight to my hips!”

It could be my jail-escaped goblin

With grandma blood still on his lips.

Techniques for the Management of Emotion Vessels

The bikes that I had in my brain

Were traveling out of their lane

For example, the bikes in Lane Fear

Would quite irritatingly veer

To the lane on the right called Irate

Or the lane full of potholes called Hate

And the bikes in the lane of Aggression

Would crash into the bikes in Obsession

And the bikes in Indulgence, of course

Would often end up in Remorse

While the bikes in lanes Nervous and Tense

Would often crash into the fence

So I hired a Brain Traffic Cop

To get all this madness to stop

The cop, though, was scared to go near

The anarchic and lawless Lane Fear

So he hid in a pothole in Hate

With his rude middle finger held straight

“You’re all terrible drivers!” he’d curse

And he made all the traffic get worse

So I paved over all the damn lanes

And thought I’d start over with trains

I figured with feelings on tracks

I’d prevent any road rage-y acts

But the trains crossed and crashed all the same

And really, I’m only to blame

Who else would have thought it was sane

To install a conductor-less train?

So I started all over with boats

And I don’t mean to boast or to gloat

But it’s really worked out rather great

‘Cause Fear and Aggression and Hate

Obsession, Indulgence, Irate

Floated worse than a big armored tank

And gradually, thankfully sank

While Humor, Contentment and Luck

All float just as well as a duck

So with water instead of concrete

My brain has become nice and neat

(Except the boats Nervous and Tense

Which still often crash into the fence.)

Five Clever Echidnas

Some fellows had some hearty sips

Of whiskey-spiked insecticide

Both poisons trickled through their lips

They cried a lot, and then they died.

And their fresh tears absurdly fell

Upon the ground where insects hide

Those insects, in their soggy hell

Ate tear-stained dirt, and promptly died.

Then five echidnas ate the ants

That had the poisoned dirt imbibed

But they wore anti-poison pants

Echidunot! So they survived.

The Greatest Salesman

Death came squawking like a parrot

Bearing loads of ghoulish limbs

Veiny eyes and rotten fingers

Sheets of soft, decaying skins.

“Buy from me, the one and only!

I am Death, the great Unfair!

I’ve got deals to blow your head off!

I’ve got sales extraordinaire!

Discounts on discarded eyelids!

Half off shriveled infant ears!

Buy two kidneys, get a third one!

Plus a vial of mourners’ tears!”

When I heard Sir Death come hawking

I went out to buy some things

Very cheap aborted babies

And a gift of beetle wings

 “Am I not the greatest salesman?”

Death had asked me with a grin

“Sir, you are! I can’t deny it!

How much is that rotten skin?”

“Just six pennies for an acre!”

Death replied as he unrolled

Yards and yards of shriveled pore-sheets

Only lightly stained with mold

“What a deal!” I cried. “Six pennies!”

“Give me twenty acres then!”

He handed me the skin

And gifted me a fountain pen

“Thank you, friend!” he told me

“Twas a pleasure meeting you!

And now I’ve got to go and kill

A man who lives in Timbuktu!”

Death mounted his fine horse

And galloped off into the dusk

He left behind the smell of rot

I noticed with disgust.

And I was left with all I’d purchased:

Murdered babies, rolls of skin

I took it home to my dear wife

And told her with a happy grin:

“Darling, look how cheap it is

To buy from Death!” I said out loud

And when I saw she too was dead
I wished that I had bought a shroud.

A Summer Vacation to Whirlyville

A summer vacation to Whirlyville

Where everyone’s whizzing around

You’re sure to get woozy in Whirlyville

It’s hard to keep track of the ground

The suns are all blurry in Whirlyville

Just how many suns do you need?

The world’s in a blender in Whirlyville

And the blender is set to high speed

No time for conversing in Whirlyville

The people don’t chit-chat—they squeal!

It’s hard to make small talk in Whirlyville

When your head’s spinning round like a wheel

And everything’s filthy in Whirlyville

Where everyone’s turning like tops

They’re all much too dizzy in Whirlyville

To operate broomsticks or mops

And all the food’s whirly in Whirlyville

Cotton candy swirled up pink and blue

But you might not want dinner in Whirlyville

Since your stomach’s in Whirlyville too

If you’ve never gone dancing in Whirlyville

It’s a great place to try pirouettes

You can charter a plane flight to Whirlyville

If you like spinning round in a jet

You’ll hear pleas for help here in Whirlyville

Like, “Somebody please stop the ride!”

But the mayor replies, “Here in Whirlyville

Whirls and whirling are all we provide.”

When you finally return home from Whirlyville

You’ll appreciate how stillness feels

There’s no food flying round; unlike Whirlyville

You can calmly sit down and eat meals

But six months or so spent out of Whirlyville

And the stillness will start to get old

Outside of the madness of Whirlyville

Folks usually do what they’re told

And the memory of whirls had in Whirlyville

Will unsettle your humdrum placation

So you’ll round up your kids and say, “Whirlyville!
Grab your hats, and let’s go on vacation.”

The Tale of Tree and Bird Man

The tree man went a-wandering to climb what he could climb

He very quickly happened on a rather ancient pine

He climbed its hefty branches with exquisite strength and grace

And when he reached the top he felt the sky upon his face

The bird man went a-twittering among the shy-eyed birds

He learned the whoop and whistle of their wise, flirtatious words

The birds said, “Bird man, join us in our imitative glee!”

And so he sprouted feathers and flew up into the tree

“Good gracious!” said the tree man. “Is this bird man I see here?

You’ve shrunk and grown some feathers! How exceptionally queer!”

The bird man flapped excitedly. “Chirp chirpy chirp!” he said

But twitters had no meaning in the puzzled tree man’s head

“I see that you’re no longer man,” the climbing fellow quoth

“You speak bird, and I speak man. How vexing for us both!”

The bird man looked with sorry eyes, and closed his pointed beak

Within their hearts, the two old friends felt lonelyfied and weak

“I’ll visit you,” the tree man said. “When winter be, I’ll come.

I’ll bring you seeds and poppy hulls, and cigarettes and gum.

The tree man went a-climbing then, this time a-climbing down

And took his place within his job within his eggy town.

When winter was, the bird man sat and waited in his tree

He thought, “Chirp chirp!” which meant, of course, “Will tree man come for me?”

But tree man—oh, the hapless chap!—had broken both his legs

While walking down the stairs he’d slipped upon some gooey eggs

And so the meeting happened naught; the two friends stayed at home

In nests of their own fashioning, both weakified, alone

And tree man had bought seeds and hulls, and cigarettes and gum

But as he couldn’t gift them, he consumed them, one by one.

Facts About Anatomy Must Rhyme or They Are False

Digestion of the gunk I’ve chewed

That is how I use my food

ATP that’s been removed

That is how my muscles move

Tiny hair cells in the ears

That is how I hear my hears

Rods and cones that snatch the light

That is how I see my sight

Cilia within the nose

That is how I smell a rose

Pumping lungs—I’ve got a pair

That is how I breathe the air

Ventricles that squeeze and squirt

That is how my heartbeat works

Neurons firing quick as blinks

That is how I think my thinks

Kittens, sloths and baby seals

That is how I feel my feels

And that’s how I end my song

(Have I gotten something wrong?)