husk

What's in a husk but another husk, and a husk within a husk, an infinitude of husks? What's in a crabapple, shriveled on top and oozing from a sore on its side? Rot, flesh liquifying back to formlessness, seeds which have forgotten their purpose as decay overtakes them. What's in a tree strung with a thousand crabapples, all too weak to hold on longer, all ready to let go their proud identities and merge with the mud? What's left for grass smothered under a shroud of paling leaves? What's left for the leaves, dead as paper, but to dry into shreds and fragment to dust? What's left for these last black birds but to join together and rise with the snuffling wind - dark dust-storms blown to the promising south? What's a sky where clouds greenish gray as pus, ooze from horizon to horizon, to seal in the earth? a husk within a husk, and a thousand husks fallen to the soil of a husk.

vanilla memories

Sniff each bottom, where the gaps in the cellophane allow the scent to leak out. Very Berry Raspberry, Apple spice cake, almond toffee; the new, updated fragrances emphasize kitchen coziness, a dinner where tantalizing aromas and the oven's heat warmed even the coldest soul.

Today's vanilla candles smell the same as the ones she sniffed as a child, She'd wander away to the candle bin, while Mother huddled with her cronies at the luncheon counter. She'd lift each furtively from its box, rest her nostrils on its round bottom, and inhale. The alluring zing of cinnamon. Strawberry candles, like strawberry candy, soon bored with their excessive sweetness. Vanilla soothed and warmed her; vanilla hummed a magical, mellow tone.

"You can't stand there all day, kid,' the manager would bark. "Buy something or get out. This is a store, not a day care center"

She'd slink back to Mother's droning conversation. Mother's clothes reeked of stale cigarette smoke mixed with a throat-grating whiff of detergent; the other lady exhaled the stench of decay and near death, despite the gardenia perfume that she sprayed over herself like a veneer.

Maybe someday, Mother would buy vanilla candles for the house, instead of the unscented beeswax ones which were too expensive to light. Maybe Mother could buy her her very own vanilla candle for her birthday, instead of tiny cut-glass bottles of cologne, with its aggressive odor that knifed and shredded the inside of her nose. Her very own candle to hold forever, smell as she fell into sleep. An odor to comfort her in all seasons.

Milky Way

Those heavy udders bulge, leak, might drag the ground if these were ordinary cows; the cows long for thirsty calves and overzealous milkmaids.

Where do you think the Milky Way came from?

Ever hear the expression "When the cows jump over the moon"? Some of them, when jumping so far and high (over a moon made from blue cheese) leaked a little. This was the result of extreme exertion, of leaping such a long distance by an animal accustomed to chewing and leisurely moseying. A drop here, a trickle there: The cows' journey was marked by a spatter-trail of milk.

Word Dump (Verbal Litter)

Kitty stares ahead, silent. The humans think that this is because she doesn't understand speech, or lacks the vocal equipment to respond. In reality, Kitty is thinking "Humans are the loudest species around. When they're not gabbing, they're blasting radios or TVs, roaring down roads in screeching cars or stampeding down the stairs in clattering shoes. They pollute the planet with their noise". But Kitty, liking the luxury of frequent naps on a soft mattress and easy meals, keeps mum.

"I've composed a poem about these people," Kitty murmurs to her sidekick. All cats are secret poets; how could any creature who purrs so sonorously and meows coloratura not appreciate melody and cadence. Kitty yawns to inhale deeply, and sings in a rhythmic soprano:

Word Dump

Where do the words go
when speech is done, the last page turned?

Do they burn
in the dump of discarded cries,
Do they churn
in the Lost and Found of misplaced "why's
and "what"s and "who"s
(stinking of fish rot
and the mold of too old speech)?

Do we dig a hole for them,
drag moist mud on top of it
and hide the place under rubble?
Do we let them fall to mute dust
from one-time bricks-steel beams- or seeds
let them shrink while we
go on, plump and ripe with talk?


"What are you kitties crying about? I fed you already." the lady's voice shrieks. "Is your litter box dirty? What's wrong, my precious, my sweet little howler?" she cajoles. The noisiest species on the planet, trying to silence song with pleas and shouts.

disembodied humbug

In the dream, the others were berating me: I wasn't fit for the job. I didn't have the character, grit or skills for the career or the company. What would they do with me? Would they send me to the reform school for incompetents? Would they hurl me into the Losers' Landfill, where I could howl and beg and screech forever with all the ragged, stinking-of-garbage, semi-mutant humanoids? While they deliberated and glared, I disengaged from my body and floated up to the ceiling. Emotions are felt through and in the body, and expressed by the body. I knew that, if I were to keep the job, I mustn't show my true feelings; wasn't that the first rule in the Group Survival Handbook? But, with my awareness disengaged from physical self, my body could sit in place, respectably impassive; the judges might even give me a break, due to my admirable, courageous stoicism.

I had to remain in the room, had to be alert to signs that I needed to whiz back into my body to respond to them with words. So, I hovered near the popcorn ceiling tiles, each pocked and white as acne-scarred vampire skin, and listened to them jabber.

As a dream, it wasn't as good as those in which I'm totally disembodied, no longer weighed down by bones and muscles and guts to drag around. A three-star rating at best; the dream lacked the intriguing visuals of my five-star dreams-of-disembodiment, where I float up through many stories of a high-rise, seeing in cross-section all the beams and pipes laid between ceilings and floors and the steel skeletons that hold staircases in place as I float up through the walled-off "back-stage" of an escalator or indoor fire-escape.

But, the dream reminded me of how I disengage so often. Sometimes, I have to meet with other people and find myself thinking "What a time-waster! The business could have been settled a lot more efficiently by email or in a chat room, where everyone agrees to convene at the same time. No time wasted with commuting or with the usual 'Fear not, I hail from a friendly tribe' small-talk/greetings. No time wasted circling around the issues, not when people edit their words before they type and have no need for drivel to fill gaps of silence." So, I mentally float away. Unfortunately, I can't leave my body and all its gravitas, but I journey mentally. I don't have anything substantive to add to the discussion; they don't need me here, I'm just here because I'm expected to be here, a serial number in its proper place,and I'm fulfilling expectations merely for utilitarian reasons. I throw in the occasional morsel of small talk,......but, really, the whole meeting could pass without them guessing that I "wasn't all there", that I'm mute, though not invisible; I'm better off mute - nothing substantive or entertaining from this mouth.

Maybe Scrooge wasn't the last of the curmudgeons. (Probably not. He was popular because he was an archetype exaggerated into a caricature, right?)

The Write Cat?

The Write Cat

My tom's a bright and big boy -
He does it to annoy.
When he's lonely and he's
Ignored, he stomps upon the keys.

Should I teach my pet the alphabet
Hope he pats out witty prose?
Teach him edition and derision,
Hope each kitty ditty shows
He can add up what he knows?

Or will Cat, nipped by the rage
To peck pointless periods on a page,
Type no tyke teasers or hypotheses,
But pat out parades of parentheses?

Teach his mate to nap upon the spacer
Just because he's cat-curious,
Counting nanoseconds til I grow furious
Enough to scream and chase her?
Teach kit to leap and race her
Claws (without pause or erasures)
Until white's stippled with a luxurious
Excess of "@g$*&mF09+!"ers?

Hard-Wired Kitty

My cat once preferred the mouse.
Now he prefers the keys;
Leaps and lands and like a souse
Types a tippler's nonsense pleas.

Kitty's a computer pet
Who ogles at the internet.
Though of the wired generation
With wild-child panther concentration,
She'll take lap and nap over browsing
And virtual carousing.