Reading a Book

I was reading a book in an unexpected place. Twenty men gathered around me to watch me read. I started to read aloud but they complained, said: No, no, read silently. I switched back to reading silently and watched them watch my eyes. Then it hit me: How was I reading while also watching the men watch my eyes? I realized then I had two sets of eyes and got dizzy. I toppled over and when I came to I was cradled in one of the men's arms; another was gently feeding me water. I spat it out, yelled: Away, you fools! Aren't there any women around here? But that was the year all women were exiled to the sky, and I could see them reaching helplessly towards me, chained to their clouds.

When Your Kid Doesn’t Get It

I spent way too long writing poetry yesterday

Boy you should have seen the way I was doing it!

Hanging upside-down from the ceiling like a bat

Writing in purple ink on a yellow memo-pad

Sending the pages sailing down to the carpet

Thousands of them!

My son came home from school, waded in, and got paper cuts all over his legs

"Mommy," he whined, "why do you always have to hang like a bat!"

My Final Act

I was so tired when I got home

I just plopped down on the couch and melted

‘You’re gonna need a Wet-Vac to clean my remains!’ I texted my roommate

He came home with an anteater instead

"I can’t clean you as goo!" he said. "Turn into ants!"

Not one to be antagonistic

I turned into ants.

Closed Sesame

My dentist used to say Open Sesame

Then dig at my gums

I’d say Closed Sesame

And clamp my mouth shut

He’d say Open Sesame

And dig at my gums again

It went on like that for hours

I had astronomical bills.

None Will Hop As High As I Have

Today I hopped the highest

Hopped right out of the atmosphere

Hopped until the earth was pea-sized

A paint-dot under my shoe

Go on, earth, you bloated bauble

Go on and send your most ambitious grasshoppers

Your juiced-up athletes on pogo sticks

Your champion Mexican jumping beans

Your widows who see their dead husbands beckon invitingly from among the stars

None will hop as high as I have

None will leap to this apex

Nor suffocate so willingly in space

None will…

Oh, shit.

Hello steroid pogo dude

Didn’t think you’d make it all the way up here

Congratulations

Guess we can hold hands on the way back down.

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga had her flaws

Legend says a witch she was

She liked to feast on baby meat

Her house was built on chicken feet

And like other Slavic crones

She kept, in boxes, children’s bones

She liked to shake the boxes since

They were, to her, nice instruments

“What fine melodious sounds!” she’d chatter

“Shake the box and hear them clatter!”

She’d shake the bones until they broke

Then mail them to the dead kids’ folks

Seething parents got the boxes

And grabbed their pitchforks, quick as foxes

“Oh, she’ll pay, that lousy witch!

For turning kids’ bones into kitsch!

We’ll turn her into minced up meat!”

They found her house on chicken feet

And cried: “A-ha! That there’s her coven!”

Zap! They landed in her oven.

Roasted well and served with punch

They made a quick and tasty lunch

Then Baba Yag said, “Shakalaka!

Time to make some bone maracas!”

That she did—made more and more

Until she had a music store

Where hags and satyrs, orcs and trolls

Bought rattles made from murdered souls

But none enjoyed the sounds as much

As Baba in her chicken hut

Who, to this day, when she’s alone

Will dance around her creaky home

Sloppy drunk on newt skin grog-a

Shaking kids’ bones. Baba Yaga.

Before the Imposition of Sunlight and Words

Before the imposition of Sunlight and Words

The pre-forms huddled in dark nonsense

They would become the Magician, the Outlaw, the Ruler, the Sage

But back then they babbled in baby talk

“De gog widdle dum dap dolbindle borgman,” –formless 1

“Sorg, oodum gran lop pims wondle swog,” –formless 2

Yes, they argued, but their arguments were soon forgotten

Appearing and disappearing like shadows, or bugs from a hole

Peace wrapped them in a cuddle pile at night

Formless snores and formless heartbeats

Later who could think of the Outlaw cradling the Ruler, muttering nonsense, playing with his golden-threaded hair?

Oh, but there is violence hidden in Sunlight and Words.