It’s all in there The things you muttered When no one was listening.
The comments The cracks The curses, pertaining to the people you'd get for the snub, the cut in line, or just plain wrecking your life.
IOU’s, some stacked in piles, waiting for the call. Other incidents yellowing on the floor rotting emotionless.
Paybacks are in order, names underlined in red Burning to the touch.
You shut the door for now. And never forget the combination.
Dust
Hellos and hugs become sedentary. A wave and smile from the couch.
Meals move from kitchen table to coffee table, television talking.
Sheets lay in wrinkles all day. Passion becomes a rented movie.
Hot coffee provides excitement in their veins.
Looking into each other's eyes, they see themselves, tiny still stones secure in a dry river bed.
New England’s Autumn
Even after years of predisposed self-indulgence, the field's complexion unravels humanity's cocoon of indifference, enabling my numbness, a moment of consciousness. Pried into configuration, glued against centuries, barring some or all root rot, stifle stock, lemon yellow in looks and tastes, bowed proud spotty blue oiled water, iced life, recycled death, slurped downward All encased by formidable friends and fiends of barren might, yet, still only a passé parry in a ritual a moment to be completed that will never be completed, again Solemnly awaiting . . . tarmac's apathetic oblivion and no one there to tell, almost.
Advice from a Pancaked Petrified Moon Snail
Listen to your parents, young snail.
Don’t ride on the backs of whales, the shore is your friend at least, a neighbor that knows your name.
There is a siren’s song for a reason.
Yes, there are speedy waves they make young graves.
Coral colors are nice Do they make up for the crab’s vice?
Seaweed is green and deep it wouldn’t hide you from the fish that creep.
Look at me, I once had a figure to dive for I rode the tide, I’m flattened a fossil.
I know what happens when you don’t look both ways.
I'm a little tea cup Trying to get out I am stuck here I want to shout!
The little girl’s got me in her hand again. Please drop me, pretty please. There on the hardwood floor Finish me.
Why am I here? I’ll tell - cracked, plain cracked.
I came from a modest start - glazed A player in an ensemble Photo shoots, catalogues, storefronts Finally, someone’s something. Next, big gigs: Christmas, Easter . . . Intimate affairs-gossip, rumors . . .
Until, Great Aunt Betty’s treachery . . . had to help clean up We all fall down Chipped, cracked, ruined Most pieces are honored with expletives when buried in the trash
Not me. My body is only slightly split No longer tea worthy Demoted to playroom purgatory serving dolls.
Each day, wishing I’d hit the floor harder.
Zoopocalypse
Ticket booths topple Fences fall
Trampled sandwich board pronouncing, ZOO CLOSED - WORLD ENDING stepped on again
This time, no ark, no nothing
Aslan the lion sacrifices an ostrich to the god of his appetite Hungry hippos devour ducks Brown bears eat melted éclairs, the snack shack wares
Candy wrappers blow like dead leaves hostages of the brazen breeze
The zebra coughs up a fur ball
On a rusted red wagon harnessed with pigs a gray rat with a black top hat shouts “Bring out your dead!” as he rattles by
An aardvark licks up sugar ants coated in cotton candy
An orangutan, well supplied: trail mix and bamboo by his side cheats pandas at dice
Screeching chimps shatter the park’s lights as the red moon glows in the night sky
The featherless parrot repeats:
This is the way the zoo ends This is the way the zoo ends Not with a meow But a growl.
Any Last Words
Dark room, dummy waits dusty doll old brown suit black hair blank look been here for years, ventriloquist vanished. Curtain closed.
After a decade, Bring the house down The theatre was being demolished and the dummy was going down too.
Twinkle, twinkle old fairy appears more of a moth musty white wings tattered with a dull wand few wishes left.
“What’ll it be? Gold? Never grow old? What you want most? Or least? Stay or go? Just say so. Anything? Just speak.”
The dummy sits praying for his partner. He’d know what to say. I don’t do this part.
“Speak dummy.” Paint cracking blue chipping from his eyes he stays silent as the fairy flies.