Transvestite Garden Gnome

Two weeks ago my garden gnome

Had snuck inside my house

I caught him in my closet

In my frilly socks and blouse.

“What are you doing, little gnome?”

“Um, nothing,” he replied.

“It’s fine if you like ladies’ clothes,”

I said. “No need to hide.”

“You’re not upset?” the fellow asked

“I’m not. I’m just surprised.

But let me see if I can’t find

Some outfits in your size.”

I found a shirt I used to wear

(I’d shrunk it in the wash)

I also found a wide-brimmed hat

The color of a squash.

“Do you like skirts or shorts?” I asked

The gnome replied: “Skirts, please.”

And so I found a ruffly one

That fluttered in the breeze

The garden gnome was shyly thrilled

“What lovely clothes!” he gushed

“You look just gorgeous,” I replied.

The garden gnome just blushed.

“You think I could come every day?”

He asked. “To try things on?

And wear a different outfit

Every day upon your lawn?”

“Of course you can,” I offered him

“If that’s what you desire.

In fact, I’ll give you all the clothes

That shrunk up in the dryer.”

“Wow, thanks!” he said, “And one more thing…

I know you named me Schmee.

But could you call me Trixie?

I think that it’s more me.”

“Okay,” I said, and now, each day

When I head out from home

I smile and wave to ‘Trixie’
My transvestite garden gnome.

Half-Boozer, Half-Parrot

This is my beak

I use it to speak

My mom was a parrot

My dad was a drunk.

Half-boozer, half-parrot

I really can’t bear it

My torso has feathers

My liver has shrunk.

My dad wasn’t sober

That fateful October

He thought he’d got hold

Of a girl, not a bird.

Because of his habit

That lusty old maggot

Knew not what he screwed

‘Cause his vision was blurred.

I was born from an egg

And I nursed from a keg

And now I’m as drunk

As my lousy old man.

He’s degenerate waste

And has terrible taste

In his partners. But hey,

He can’t fly, and I can.

A Curse on Mosquitoes

I have been bitten
I wrote, it is written

That I have been bitten

By biters unseen.

Those unforeseen biters

Those come-out-at-nighters

Have bitten me everywhere.

Why? ‘Cause they’re mean.

Some folks call them skeeters

They’re pro blood depleters

They’ll suck ‘til they burst

With the weight of your gore

You can try citronella

But I’m here to tell ya

There’s nothing that won’t make

The bastards want more.

They’re not earthly creatures

Those demon blood-leechers

They’re born from a dark, diabolical void.

Sure, you can kill one

With your finger and thumb

But the unholy masses?

They can’t be destroyed.

And when they do bite you

I warn that despite

Your best efforts, you cannot avoid

Those blood-sucking meanies

Those vampire houdinis

They’ll bite even more

If they know you’re annoyed.

Poems as a Response to the Cyclic Consciousness of Nature

A poem is just a poet’s way

Of sniffing out the season

She writes the poems because she breathes

There is no other reason

In autumn, poems go floating

To the earth, like leaves to lakes

In winter, poems are crystallized

In icy, mirrored flakes

In springtime, poems go fluttering

Like tiny birds from nests

In summer, poems burst forth

Like drops of sweat on women’s breasts

The poet sees and smells it all

And breathes it out in words

And poems are written just like chirps

Are uttered from the birds.

Weak Old Man

Here I come, I’m a weak old man

I can barely push my shopping cart I’m so weak

My shopping cart has all the things I own in it

A sleeping bag, some bananas, a dead ferret

I’m so weak my heart could stop beating any second

I don’t have any children so no one will care if I die

I don’t know how to use technology

But I am happy because I know how to watch the sky

And look at the withered skeletons of the clouds

Seeing in them a reflection of my own weakness

I know how to listen to the language of the birds

I can hear them cursing

They have dirty, dirty minds

A Cave of Blind Birds

We crawled through a cave

That was full of blind birds

We waded through pools

That were full of their turds

It was so very dark

We could not see at all

The cave was enormous

And drippy and tall

One girl in our group

Lay down and she sang

With long, haunting notes

That slithered and rang

The cave echoed back

Like a vibrating gong

The melody softened

Dark, spooky and long

I felt like an outcast

Long-lost in that cave

I knew, to survive

I would have to be brave

I’d have to find out

How to hunt those damn birds

That nested above us

And dropped down their turds

I’d have to find out

What water to drink

The cave water sure wasn’t fresh

Like the sink

And if someone died

Would we eat up their corpse?

Would we bury them somewhere?

Or feel much remorse?

I thought of the time

When our flashlights would die

And we would be blind

Would all of us cry?

We’d live in a dark world

Of echoes and cold

Not able to watch

As our faces grew old

A life with no mirrors

A life of long beards

A life in the dark

It was all that I feared

But we simply kept crawling

And then we saw light

A hole at the tunnel

The end of the night

No one would be eating

The other one’s corpse

No one would be living

In sightless time warps

We simply jumped out

Of the cave, where we found

A pool that was crystal blue

Lukewarm and round

We splashed in the pool

There were no blind birds

We sometimes sang out

But no echoes were heard

And then we returned

To our everyday lives

Not wondering how

To kill birds and survive

And I do miss the cave

With its dark, drippy fright

But I guess in the end

I prefer to have light.

Ooze

There is a piece of ooze on the sidewalk

It could be the casing of some wondrous slug

Or a segment of jelly made from cow hoof.

It could be some snot from a child,

Or it could be alien ooze

Invisible antennas perked, listening.

Relaying your voice to its masters as you say: “Ick!”

And when your voice is decoded,

the masters will know you feel disgust at their form.

We cannot go there, they will say, to share our marvelous instrument, the Celestial Harmonica.

No, if we ooze aliens go to this earth, they will see us as mere hunks of snot.

Better, then, if the ooze is the casing of some wondrous slug

Or a segment of jelly made from cow hoof.