the flower's funeral

at the flower's funeral, mostly bees attended

"it was a good flower," they said, "full of nectar."

that angel's touch

staring straight at the funhouse mirror

you see yourself with a unibrow

although you are looking straight ahead, in the mirror your eyes appear downcast

you see an angel on your right shoulder and a devil on your left

"those things aren't real," you think. "i don't have a unibrow."

you press your finger to the bridge of your nose and slide it upward with trepidation, wondering if you'll feel the thick frida kahlo bridge you just saw in your reflection

when you hit fuzz, you gasp

you decide to leave the funhouse and go to a regular mirror

the exit is down a corridor, and a woman in a long, white dress approaches you from the other end

she is carrying a hand mirror, which is facing toward you

in that mirror, your eyebrows are separated again

your eyes are looking straight ahead

the angel and the devil are gone

but, doubting yourself, you think maybe the funhouse mirror was true

did it show you the angel, devil and unibrow you never knew you had?

"angel," you whisper, "are you my conscience?" and a voice from over your right shoulder says, "yes"

"devil," you ask, "are you my bad intentions?" and a voice from over your left shoulder says, "yes."

you've almost forgotten the woman in the white dress who is now stripping, slipping the white sleeves off her shoulder, exposing her breasts.
"Oh no, no, no," you say, but the woman with the mirror says, "yes."

Ink Vampires

When teacher says, "Write answers down."
It's not that I don't think
I try to write an answer, but
Ink vampires drink my ink!
They're small and pink, and so they hide
Inside my pencil cases
And if you didn't see their fangs
You'd think they were erasers
And when you go to write a date
Like 1492
They suck the ink right from the pen!
Now what a thing to do!
It's cause of them I failed the test
And left the pages blank
I act'ly had a lot to say
But all my ink was drank.

Wrong Seasoning

My mum made a soup
Using abstract reasoning
It seemed she'd run out
Of allspice seasoning
The soup still smelled great
But you can't take a bite
Unless you can solve
A hard math problem right
"What's six hundred
divided by seven?" it said
I guessed "sixty-two"
And went hungry to bed.

The Lizard's Tale

My tongue is long
The desert's dry
Oh hidey ho, oh hidey hi
My blood is cold
So I sun on rocks
With one eye open
To look for hawks
The cacti are friends
I know them by name
That one over there
I call Spikey Maclaine
At night I hang out
In the skull of a horse
Where I meet my friends Igor
And Charlie of course
I ask how their day been
I ask what they ate
I ask if they had a close call
With a snake
"As big as a hose!
With a ten-inch long tooth!"
(That's Charlie--he sometimes
Elongates the truth)
We drink water, and when
We run out, we drink dust
From the cow skull we watch
The sky fade into dusk
The more dusky it gets
The more sleepy we feel
'Specially if we have had
A few bugs for a meal
The cacti stand guard
While we snooze for a bit
In my dream, my tongue's short
And the desert is wet
But when I awake
Hidey ho, hidey hi
My tongue is long
And the desert's dry

When Cream Puff Head Met a Fox

Cream Puff Head wore a suit and tie

With silver cufflinks from Versailles

And Cream Puff Head moved quick and spry

Down the streets of the busy city

And Cream Puff Head had a fancy job

As Cream in Chief of The Thrifty Squab

Which sold pigeon feed to pigeon snobs

And he had his own bird named Pretty

But one day Pretty flew the coop

She escaped her cage with a mighty swoop

And Cream Puff Head gave a horrid whoop

And screamed, "I'll catch you, Pretty!"

He ran outside in his dressing gown

She quickly flew to the edge of town

He tried, but couldn't chase her down

And a voice said, "What a pity."

"Who's that?" asked Cream Puff Head, surprised

And he saw a fox, unsupervised

"Hey, where's your cage?" he asked the fox

Who said: "I don't do well with locks."

"Well, fox, if you're so wise and free

Can you bring Pretty back to me?"

"I believe I can," the fox agreed

"Provided that you pay my fee."

"Anything!" said Cream Puff Head

"As long as I don't wind up dead."

"You won't," said the fox, "but I'll need to drain

Just a little cream from your cream puff brain.

It would complement my meal."

"Just a little cream?" the Cream Puff asked

"Right," said the fox. "Painless. Fast.

And Pretty's back 'fore the day has passed."

So Cream Puff Head said, "Deal."

Then fox scampered off, and was back that night

He'd grabbed a pigeon from midflight

The bird wasn't Pretty, but that was all right

'Cause Cream Puff Head had bad eyesight

"Oh thank you fox!" cried Cream Puff Head

"And now about our deal...I know I said

That you could have some cream, but how

'bout just some cash instead?"

"A deal's a deal, " the fox replied

He took a needle from his hide

And poked the Cream Puff in the side

To drain the precious cream

The Cream Puff Head felt woozy; dim

The cream was draining out of him

It didn't hurt, but it did feel grim

Like the world was a hazy dream

It took the fox just a little while

He caught the cream in a silver vial

And when he finished, Cream Puff smiled

And said, "That's it? Posh, pish!"

Then Cream Puff Head went back to his job

As Cream in Chief of The Thrifty Squab

And the fox made espresso creme with a daub

Of the freshest cream--- delish!

Innocence

Wet steeds with chestnut coats sip from the same milky trough.

The trough reflects the stars; two cowboys sit nearby and eat beans from a tin.

One cowboy sighs. He has undiagnosed cancer of the prostate; this creates uncomfortable pressure in his groin and he shifts slightly on his log.

Another cowboy recites poems in the simple present:

"Women carry armfuls of silver flamingos."

"Shut up, Jack," the other cowboy reprimands. He's had enough of Jack's nightly poems. The steeds lie down to rest.

"Handicapped men puncture lemons with thermometers."

"I don't like your poems, Jack. Stop it."

"Boys kick over buckets of mice."

The cowboy with the prostate cancer ignores Jack for a moment and looks at the black expanse of sky. The night is too hot. The heat makes him irritable. He dreams of being in the arms of his Eleanor. She is standing in front of him, breasts like peeled eggs, wearing thin whispers of lace...

"Little girls suckle peonies on fields of brains."

The little girls turn their heads when they hear this description: they had no idea someone was watching. Releasing the peonies, they run back to their houses to hide.

"I got them," Jack says triumphantly. "Sometimes the mere act of describing reality dissolves it."

"I don't care who you dissolved," says the prostate-cowboy, groping the mirage of great breasts. The lace crumples under his eager fingers; he notes from the texture of the breasts that they're illusory--yet another hallucination produced by loneliness and overconsumption of beans. Jack seems too pleased with himself for having dissolved the peony girls. Divine intervention would have removed the illusions from both men, but the cancer and poetry would not have disappeared, only been buried deeper into more unconscious realms.