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.

To Not Have Needs

Among the dead, I sat and read

The book aroused some grief

A digger dug a nice, neat grave

Less tidy were his teeth

A girl walked by in Catholic skirt

Put flowers on a tomb

Her grandma had gone on to dwell

In some post-mortem womb

The digger in the sun is brave

To do his morbid chore

A grave is brave to hold the dead

Not vomit up the gore

The skirted girl needs Grandma back

The digger needs new teeth

But I am needless in the shade

The book, the grave, the grief

Angels of Death

Some angels are dangerous, angels of death

They look like old rags and they smell like burnt meth

They’ll watch from above with their squinty, red eyes

They work for the devil, professional spies

They’ll leap down from their perch on a telephone pole

They will land on your chest and they’ll sniff out your soul

And if, in your soul, they smell shame, fear or doubt

They’ll stick in their straw and they’ll suck your soul out

So unless you’re scrubbed clean of such things, I’d advise

You watch out for old rags that have squinty, red eyes.

A Love Poem

I want to make you out of clay

Your hair will be curly snippets of yarn

You’ll have raisins for eyes

Did you know you have raisin-black eyes?

I want to craft your tits

As two clay hills

I want you to sit in my fridge

So on days when my hands sweat,

I can hold cool clay.

I don’t want you to have free will

Because you might end up in someone else’s fridge

Someone who always has cold hands, even in summer,

And doesn’t want to hold you.

Bears

You and me, we once were bears

And bears we once-time were

We both had claws and pointy teeth

And thick, protective fur.

I tugged and pinched your fuzzy fur

And asked you to be mine

With rat bones, leaves and squirrel guts

I made a Valentine.

You said, “How sweet! A Valentine!”

It sounded like, “Rarr-rurrrr.”

And how I trembled when you tugged

And pinched my fuzzy fur.

We made sweet, bearish love in caves

And hunted fish in streams

We slept together, paws held tight

And met again in dreams.

And when the winter came we slept

The cold was sharp as pins

And when we woke, we were not bears

But Homo sapiens.

We went into the city then

And each obtained a job

You changed your name to Susan Beth

I changed my name to Bob.

We don't have caves for making love

Just mattress-on-the-floor

We don’t snatch fish from raging streams

Just buy it from the store.

And we don't tug or pinch too much

Because we don't have fur

But you and me, we once were bears

And bears we once-time were.

Jabberwocky Does Chores

‘Twas brillig and the Jabberwock

Had much to do around the house

Replacing lightbulbs, sweeping dust

And setting mice traps for the mouse.

And when he’d done those basic chores

No more did he the Missus fear

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

And drank a large and frothy beer.

And as in uffish thought he stood

He scraped his claw upon his tooth

And then remembered: “Frabjous drat!

I’ve got to fix the leaky roof!”

So, Jabberwock, with eyes of flame

Went whiffling up to fix the roof

But ladder’s rungs went snicker-snack!

He fell with one galumphing OOF.

“Ooch, ow! Ow, ush! I’ve bruised my tush!”

The Jabberwock began to moan

And with his tail between his legs

He went galumphing, sadly, home.

“And hast thou fixed the gutters yet?”

Mrs. Jabberwock was quick to ask

He shook his head, and showed instead

His bruised and battered Jabber-ass.

‘Twas brillig and the Jabber’s wife

All beamish, called the Bandersnatch

Described in full her husband’s fall

And chortled something awful.