"Nice to meet you."
"You too."
"So, what do you do for the living?"
"You mean...what I do for a living?"
"No."
"Oh."

"Fuuuuuck!" groaned the Tortoise.
"****!" spat the Hare.

"Son of a *****!" barked the Fox.
"**** on a rooster!" cawed the Crow.

"***** of a bison!" growled the Wolf.
"***** of a llama!" brayed the ***.

"**** on a termite!" squealed the Ant.
"**** of a cricket!" grated the Grasshopper.

"THE HUMANS KNOW OUR STORIES!!"
cried the animals in unison despair.

"Yeeeees," hoot'd the Owl
with an evil-wicked grin,
"but only the ones with a moral."

Just one thing
or
Everything?

If the universe paused in affection
at every blissful death
for every restless life
It would drown inside a teardrop
implode around a frown

no

when She dies
blissfully, from a restless life
and ripples of time are held suspended
along the contours of her smile
It will simply be the universe pausing

for effect.

Sometimes
When you carry the figurative
weight of the world
on metaphorical shoulders
By some semantic glitch
Your all-too-real lower back
takes a hit.

All it takes is a sharp word
pressed softly
against the semantic membrane,

And suddenly

Paradox-consuming entity
incapable of digesting paradoxes.