I'm A Cross-Dressing Spider

I'm a cross-dressing spider
And flies are my meals
But it's hard to catch flies
In my bra and high heels.

Lifeguards Are Sometimes Jerks

I went to the beach to go swim in the sea

“You can’t swim,” said the lifeguard. “You don’t have a key.”

“There’s no key to the sea!” I responded with rage

But that second he pushed me inside of a cage.

“If you’re clever enough,” he said then, “to get free

Then you’re too smart to drown, and that’s less work for me.”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Nope, not really,” he said, and he sipped on his Coke.

Well, I’d come there with nothing, except for my clothes

What was I s’posed to do? Pick the lock with my toes?

“Come on, lifeguard!” I said. “Why ya doin’ this crap?”

“Cause I dig it,” he told me. “Now shut ya damn trap.”

So I waited all day in that stupid locked cage

With my skin turning pink from both sunburn and rage

And when night fell I said, “Man, I’ve had it! No more!”

And the lifeguard said, “Fine, dude. But first, sweep the floor.”

“Oh, now I’m your slave?” I said. “Isn’t that grand!”

But I looked then and saw: I was standing on sand.

Anthropo-Floral Romance

If I only had the power, I would turn into a flower

Fuse my legs into a stem and make ‘em green
The stem will have stomata, or at least I think it oughta

And my leaves will have a healthy, waxy sheen.

After that, I will be aimin’ to turn torso into stamen

Eyes and mouth and ears to petals, one by one

I’ll make pollen with my anthers; I’ll have seeds as black as panthers

And my petals will be yellow when I’m done.

Then you’ll come along and pick me, take me home and gently stick me

In a vase I know you keep in your boudoir

You’ll gaze serenely at my beauty, smell my fragrance (slightly fruity)

And admire how I’m golden like a star.

Then at night I’ll watch you sleeping, and I’ll silently be weeping

‘Cause I’ll never sleep with you, no not with you

But you won’t detect my mourning upon waking in the morning

‘Cause you’ll see my tears and think they’re only dew.

You will give me water daily, and you’ll play your ukulele

For me, having read that music’s good for plants

Then you’ll sit and do your quilting, and I’ll watch you, slowly wilting

Petals shrink, detach and fall—a morbid dance.

After days of petal shedding (which is like a slow beheading)

You will think that I look bare and past my prime

So you’ll throw me in the bin, and shut the lid (a clash of tin)

And that’s the end…but we were lovers, for a time.

The Born Horn

Long ago, the whole world had a Born Horn

With a trumpet-blast loud as a bomb

It sounded whenever a baby

Came slip-sliding out of its mom.

But soon there were more and more babies

And the Born Horn went off every hour

It disturbed people sleeping or working

Or cooking or taking a shower.

So the people cried: “Ban the damn Born Horn!”

But the Born Hornsman said: “People, please!

Does the thought of a soul sliding into the world

Not quiver the caps of your knees?

Is it too much to ask just to pause for a sec

When new eyes and new noses arrive?

Does each horn blast not mean: ‘Hallelujah!

A dear sibling, at last, is alive!’?

For aren’t we all brothers and sisters?

Is each human not one of our own?

Don’t you picture each babe when the Born Horn goes off?

Don’t you think to it: ‘child, welcome home’?”

“No, we don’t and we won’t!” cried the people

“'Cause the Born Horn goes off all the time!

It’s obnoxious and pointless, and from this day on

Born Horn ringing’s considered a crime!”

So the Born Hornsman packed up his Born Horn

And the babies kept sliding on in

With nobody paying attention

Except for their nearest of kin.

“Well, I can’t have my horn,” thought the Hornsman

“But perhaps I could buy a small chime.”

So he did, and he rang it when babies were born

And thought: "child, welcome home" every time.

A Mirror-Mind's Lament

It’s becoming ever clearer

That I’m actually a mirror

And when I am introspecting

I am really just reflecting

‘Cause there’s nothing on the outside

That’s not also on the inner

‘Cause both in and out are Empty

And it’s Emptiness for dinner!

But a mirror’s just as Empty

As the Empty space it’s seeing

So it can’t be me that’s Empty

Unless Emptiness is Being

Oh it’s strange to be so empty!

What a state of disaffection!

For a mirror feels so useless

When it’s void of a reflection

It can just reflect the things that are

What else can it expect?

But soon it learns that ‘things’

Are just what human minds project

And when a human mind’s a mirror

(Like mine is, as I have said)

Naught’s projected, naught is seen

And so I might as well be dead!

But is there stuff to see in afterlife?

And is there stuff to do?

Or in afterlife, do mirrors gain projecting powers too?

Oh, I envy all you minds

Who can project a world of forms...

And see the trees and rivers

And the sun and clouds and storms

 ‘Cause when mind is just a mirror

With an empty out and inner

Then it can't have steak or French fries
No, it's Emptiness for dinner

And your steak (though it’s projected)

Is your steak, and never mine

And I cannot even see it

But my god, it smells divine.

Flannery O'Connor: An Semi-Accurate, Non-Erotic Biography

Flannery O’Connor, Flannery O’Connor
In 1951, the doctors said she was a goner
They said: “Lupus, lupus, lupus!”
And she said: “Holy cow!
I guess I’ll live with mom and raise some peacocks now!”
She raised a hundred peacocks
She wrote a hundred books
At night she went out dancin’ with the gypsies and the crooks.
Her work was Southern Gothic
It wasn’t Kafkaesque
The critics said: “Yo, Flannery, your writing is grotesque!”
She said: “Ooga-booga-booga!
I’m a Catholic wiccan!
When I was just a kid, I had a famous pet chicken!
I liked to eat shrimp, and I liked to eat pie
In 1954 I got a kiss from a guy
He said my lips were limp
And my teeth were hard as stones
He felt like he was makin’ out with skeleton bones.
I wasn’t dead yet, but I was in ‘64
The lupus ate me up and spit me out upon the floor.
And I said Ooga-booga-booga!
Time to meet God! You shall know the truth
And the truth will make you odd.”

Grandma Tap Dance

Grandma Tap Dance—watch her go
Across the stage she shuffles
She’s wearing ancient tap shoes
And a faded dress with ruffles.


She’s shuffling but she doesn't hear
The music's steady beat.
She only knows the music means
She’s s’posed to tap her feet.


She goes in circles aimlessly
And claps her castanets.
She sometimes knows that she’s on stage
But sometimes she forgets.


And when she’s done, the host says
“Ninety-one! Still dancing! Gee!
I think that’s great!
Put money in the hat if you agree.”


Clink, clink—here come the pity coins
“She’s ancient, after all.”
“She didn’t really dance, but hey
At least she didn’t fall.”


And Grandma Tap Dance, now offstage
Is in a chair, asleep
Her body sags, she looks like
Skin and ruffles in a heap.


Her daughter takes the coin hat
And she lets her mother snooze
Ten bucks, twelve cents—not terrible.
She leaves to buy some booze.


And Grandma Tap Dance dreams she’s young
She’s barely come of age
She’s dancing oh-so-beautifully
Across a lighted stage.


She leaps and shimmies, spins and slides
Until the curtain closes
The crowd goes wild; the stage is filled
With heaps and heaps of roses.


While Grandma dreams, the daughter drinks
‘Til drinks have drowned her sorrow
“C’mon, Mom, let’s go home,” she slurs
“You’ll dance again tomorrow.”


But Grandma won’t be woken up
For her, the crowd still cheers
The lights! The stage! The roses!
Oh, how real it all appears!


“Wake up, Mom!”—Grandma blinks her eyes
Where is she? How? And why?
Her daughter takes her home
And lets her have a slice of pie.