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.

love fantasy

yesterday i was sitting on a park bench

sipping lemonade wishing i could have been

born a man

then thinking about the hairy balls

and wishing i could have been

born a man without balls

and then deciding, no, better

to be born a chameleon with twisty eyes

perched on some rainforest vine

watching a toucan preen

or no, better to be born moon-dirt

white dust on a static face

or no, better to be born a clown

with a permanent honk-squeeze nose

or best of all to be born

a ball-less man with twisty eyes and a honk-squeeze nose

and i'd never smile or cry, i'd just

twist my eyes around, seeing everything in all directions

sometimes squeezing my nose for a comic honk 
but never moving from my park bench until i met my true love
who would probably be

ordinary.

Meteor Shower

A hundred nimble yogis

Beaming energies down from a spaceship

Did not behead the president

They weren't trying to.

Those same nimble yogis

A year later, half-starved,

Thinking about consuming each other

Wished they had beheaded the man

Who'd defunded 'Yogis in Space.'

This time, with feebler powers

Aiming downwards they tried to

Behead the president but his head

Came only partway off and surgeons

Were able to re-attach it.

The same chimpanzees that had fondled

Jane Goodall looked up to see where the beams

Were coming from, chimpanzees being particularly

Sensitive to interstellar beams

And when they learned those beams

Were sent for violence they beamed back up

Toward those hundred nimble yogis

Messages of comfort and peace

Ninety-nine nimble yogis

About to consume the weeklest, feeblest yogi

Halted with their forks and knives in the air

As the love of the chimpanzees washed over them

"Don't eat her," whispered the least feeble

The yogis nodded; put away their forks and knives

Helped the near-sacrifice to her feet

And each said: "I'm sorry."

But the near-sacrifice doubted

She could ever trust her fellow yogis again

One message from the chimpanzees had saved her,

But what about when the hunger resurged? Wouldn't she be the victim then?

She didn't know

That the president had re-funded 'Yogis in Space'

That veggie burgers would be arriving tomorrow

She didn't know

So her heart chakra burst open like a rusty pipe

And spilled stars.

A Merry Little Frogmas

'No Christmas this year,' I said to myself

'Screw Christmas. Bah humbug. Good grief.'

I cancelled my parties, tossed out the tree

And fed my dog all the roast beef.

I went out on my own for a walk in the snow

Through the frost-feathered meadows and hills

My mittens had holes and my socks were too thin

And I very soon shivered with chills

I blew into my hands to feel warmth from my breath

And rested a bit on a log

Then blinked 'cause I couldn't believe what I saw:

A tinsel-clad, caroling frog!

His neck was adorned with a string of white lights

A Santa hat topped his green head

Crimson tinsel encircled his slimy webbed feet

He was decked out in all green and red

"Have yourself a merry little frogmas

Let your heart be light

From now on, your troubles will be out of sight"

He warbled the song with a voice like clogged drains

Croaked so loud he was red in the face

You could tell all that belting was giving him pains

His voice leapt between tenor and bass.

And although I was grumpy and feeling remote

The sight of that frog made me smile

Despite the cacophonous croaks of his throat

And his skin tone's resemblance to bile.

In fact, I was even inspired to sing

Along with that off-pitch old frog

"Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow"

Our voices combined like a reindeer-drawn sleigh

In a wreck with a tractor-drawn plough

And once we'd concluded our cocktail of notes

The song finished off with ker-plop

Too shy or embarrassed to give me his name

The frog disappeared in the slop.

As soon as he left, I remembered again

The chill in my fingers and toes

The sky was beginning to powder my head

And frost nipped the tip of my nose

"So long, you old crooner," I said to the frog

When I heard myself speak, I felt silly

I thought to myself, "Was that frog really there?"

But saw tinsel threads left on the lily.

Once back in my house I ate green beans and toast

Since I'd given my dog the roast meat

Then I mended my mittens, so when next I went out

My hands could withstand snow and sleet.

I spent yuletide alone, but un-grumpy I felt

And when coworkers asked how I fared

I said I had "a merry little frogmas."

Some of them smiled. Some just stared.

The Snowman's Bride

The snowman's bride was six feet tall

A corncob pipe she sometimes smoked

She wore a tattered woven shawl

Her chest contained an artichoke

Said vegetable had been there placed

Because of her child-builder's quirk

He thought snow-people needed hearts

And that an artichoke would work

He built, of course, the counterpart

To this tall bride of icy white

A snowman with a hat and scarf

Just shy of his fair bride in height

But oh when this child-builder went

To steal a second artichoke

His mother said, "Oh no you don't! I need that!"

And she slapped the bloke

The boy, crestfallen, knew his groom

Could sport no heart of artichoke

And used an acorn shell instead

Which lay beside the yard's fine oak

And so their love unequal was

With love much stronger in the bride

And weaker in the groom, because

His heart was just an acorn's hide

And so the groom, when sun did shine

Stayed strong and tall and didn't melt

Was kept alive by that strong love

That his enduring bride had felt

But she herself, who was not loved

To same degree, did melt away

And that was worse, for soon

The stolen vegetable was on display

"You stole an artichoke to make

A snowman!" shouted child's mum

"Snow-woman," child-builder said

His mum thought, "He's obscenely dumb."

Meanwhile, the snow-groom melted down

To just hat, scarf and acorn shell

The squirrels stole and ate his heart

Which in the end was just as well.

Knitting Christmas Sweaters for Murderers

If I had clamped my jaw shut I would have been able to swallow the future before it happened

Instead I got lost knitting Christmas sweaters for murderers

Knitting stitches so small it makes my eyes hurt

And this one's red for the blood that fell

And this one has a star.

Not that I know whom they killed to get on Death Row

Only that they have arms and torsos, and I, a lot of free time

To perform Thankless Gifts

Like watering trees in other people's yards

Scraping the gum off sidewalks

It's a better kind of prayer than the kind that asks for things

I carry doggy bags to pick up poop

Which is sometimes soft and wet like intestines

Which you might have pulled out of that girl

Or did you drown her?

I would have been so happy to stay with you

But you left and murdered the next girl

I saw her face in the church directory

She had curly, bobbed hair like a poodle

And you're in the penitentiary the penance century the ten-pence mensch-ary

---are the word games I would have played with you

If you hadn't snuffed her out--don't you know we're all free?

To spit gum on sidewalks or scrape it off or pull someone closer or push them off or take a picture or smash a camera or eat spinach or sugar or breathe air or ashes or dust.

'May she rest in peace' is the kind of prayer that asks for things

But my prayer is a tight jaw while knitting

Was she waterlogged when they found her?

Or disemboweled?

I think I will include a note with my sweaters:

'If you let the inmate wear it on his last day

The wool will absorb his jittery sweat

Making cleanup easy.

But, if it's his last day,

Don't let him wear the one with a snowman.

Its coal grin might seem mocking,

disrespectful,
crude.'