The squirrels played havoc around the house,
picking stuffing from the porch swing,
packing it into their cheeks, until they were swollen,
pregnant, to fluff their nests with synthetic cotton.

They bounded about the yard stopping to squeeze
fallen walnuts, like supermarket melons, to see
if they were ripe or rotten.  Their neighbors,
the gopher and raccoon and rabbit

were overrun by the squirrels myriad brood.
Some (squirrels) sought refuge in refuse, chewing large
holes in the trash bins. This would feed many a raccoon’s
hungry mouth, but none of them would show thanks.

When the numbers began to spill over from the trees,
the squirrels began occupying the gutters, causing sheets
of ice to cataract, frozen down the sides of the house,
and then when the old man found stuffing from his swing

in the attic, enough had become enough. Something
had to be done. This blatant malfeasance must
be dealt with, and so he would devise a plan, a trap.
The old man stood watching the plump little devils

bounce and leap around his yard, when he saw the bin.
And wriggling the fingers on his upturned paw, a sinister
plan curled onto his face in a dark smile.  He went out
to the trash bin and filled it with water, only halfway,

no more. He dropped a lightly pumped, bald
basketball into the bin, and smiled when the first
squirrel drowned in it. Everyday, the old man wriggled
his fingers and smiled his dark smile,

until he found synthetic swing stuffing
in his bed, and realized he had lost.

Imitation is the hand-job of creativity.
So where for art thou romantic silopsisms?
Meta-physical lotion, rubbing Prufrock's
bald head. Where are the errors, syntactical?

Intimation is the ******* of canon,
The body, electric, *******, on Mt. Abora's
Cliff face.  Short syllabic thrusts put the pallet
in trouble. Sharp edged thoughts caught in the throat of the speaker, leaving them mush-mouthed,
Sentimental.

The poor rhyme scheme, literary analysis 101
feet, and meter abandoned for fun,
Or played with weakly piling on what will
Fit neatly enough in the bottom swill.

Unrequited love notes, star-crossed  cries,
Knotty tangled sentences to explain the deep ties,
Out of focus snapshots of pixilated lives
Even this bad poem, escaped the editor's knife.

The walls,
on the cricket are tough,
they squeak, they bleed,
and  run in green streaks
they chirp the night,
closing around the day,
in creaking, rusted fingers
Green walls, closing in,
chirping, cheeping,
these walls, they squeak,
they bleed
and the cricket, it speaks.

My Mother placed a glass of water
by my bed every night
before I went to sleep.

I was forbidden
to drink it
“It serves another purpose.” she would say.

This happened every day until, once,
the glass sat, half evaporated, with bubbles
clung to its ribs, and my mother panicked.

She explained the magick
as best she could to a child,
but forgot that children know the art well.

She told an Aesopian  story
of hurt and malice as weapons.
How they could be given life.

The water, she said, was a bridge.
One that could not be crossed
by the ghosts that were drawn to me in my sleep.

She warned me not to travel when I slept.
To stay away from those unfamiliar places in my dreams,
she said that they would wait for me in those nooks.

The morning she found the tumbler,
half full, me sweating, beads of glass,
she moved my bed,

told me that it might be a shade,
that the room was thick with rancor
and someone might playing with conjury.

She clipped a tuft of hair from my head
burned it, stinking between her fingers
and dropped it into what was left of the water.

“Magick is old,” she’d say,
“young souls appeal most
To strong spells and old ghosts.”

people eat each other.
they lick the skin,
fresh from the shower,
from the gym,
sweating with
salt and pheromones
and then nibble.
Take a bite,
a test taste. Most
don’t know it until
they are full, having
eaten their share.
They walk away carrying,
pregnant, someone else,
that they will defecate
in a perfectly tapered log
kept as reference.

I have lied to myself
on countless occasions,
hoping to forge truths
from behind my
yellowed teeth.
And now my mouth
is grown thick
with cultures
that were never brushed
from my pallet.
It is evident
in my clever speech
that I have never spoken
in my native tongue,
that my teeth are dying
because of this.
It is only a matter
of time before
the infection spreads
to my vital organs
and the lies I told
become me.