While wandering on a local beach
Half buried in **** and sand,
The sparkle of something caught my eye
The shape of an old tin can.
I kicked it loose from entangling ****
And saw there was something within,
A colourful creature there indeed,
An octopus in a tin.

I thought it cute so I took it home
To put in the garden pond,
Then added salt for a briny mix
So it wouldn’t think to abscond.
It swam on out of the tin to feed
And seized on a goldfish there,
I said to Diane, ‘He has a need,’
While she just tore at her hair.

‘What were you thinking?’ Diane said,
‘It’ll eat all the fish we’ve got,’
‘They’re only a couple of bucks,’ I said,
‘I’ll get some more at the shop.’
He settled right in, our strangest pet,
And cost us to feed the least,
I said that I’d name the tinker, ‘Jet’,
Diane just called him ‘The Beast’.

He started to grow, outgrew his can,
So settled down in the depths,
He couldn’t be seen for thick pondweed,
Diane said,’It’s for the best.’
The dog would bark when The Beast came up,
Would stand there, wagging his tail.
We loved that dog, though barely a pup,
Then Diane began to wail.

‘It’s eaten the effing dog,’ she said,
Her language was more than coarse,
And Rin-Tin-Tin in the pond was skin,
She said, ‘Keep it away from my horse!’
I poked around in the pool for him
Just trying to make him rise,
He bit the end of my pole clean off,
He must have grown to a size.

She said I had to stop feeding him
But that only made it worse,
He looked for food, and he got the cat
As it chased a couple of birds.
Diane was walking down by the pond
When I suddenly heard her scream,
A tentacle wrapped around her leg
It looked like a nightmare scene.

I tried my best to peel it away
The octopus was too strong,
Diane went struggling over the edge
And fell right into the pond,
It took her down to the lower depths
And ate her, clean to the bone,
I tell this tale, so you won’t forget,
Don’t take an octopus home.

David Lewis Paget

Blue Monday**
BY DIANE WAKOSKI
Blue of the heaps of beads poured into her *******  
and clacking together in her elbows;
blue of the silk
that covers lily-town at night;
blue of her teeth
that bite cold toast
and shatter on the streets;
blue of the dyed flower petals with gold stamens  
hanging like tongues
over the fence of her dress
at the opera/opals clasped under her lips
and the moon breaking over her head a
gush of blood-red lizards.

Blue Monday. Monday at 3:00 and
Monday at 5. Monday at 7:30 and
Monday at 10:00. Monday passed under the rippling  
California fountain. Monday alone
a shark in the cold blue waters.

                     You are dead: wound round like a paisley shawl.  
                     I cannot shake you out of the sheets. Your name  
                     is still wedged in every corner of the sofa.

                     Monday is the first of the week,  
                     and I think of you all week.  
                     I beg Monday not to come  
                     so that I will not think of you  
                     all week.

You paint my body blue. On the balcony
in the softy muddy night, you paint me
with bat wings and the crystal
the crystal  
the crystal
the crystal in your arm cuts away
the night, folds back ebony whale skin  
and my face, the blue of new rifles,  
and my neck, the blue of Egypt,  
and my *******, the blue of sand,  
and my arms, bass-blue,
and my stomach, arsenic;

there is electricity dripping from me like cream;
there is love dripping from me I cannot use—like acacia or  
jacaranda—fallen blue and gold flowers, crushed into the street.

                         Love passed me in a blue business suit
                         and fedora.
                         His glass cane, hollow and filled with
                         sharks and whales ...  
                         He wore black
                         patent leather shoes
                         and had a mustache. His hair was so black
                         it was almost blue.

                         “Love,” I said.
                         “I beg your pardon,” he said.  
                         “Mr. Love,” I said.
                         “I beg your pardon,” he said.

                         So I saw there was no use bothering him on the street

                         Love passed me on the street in a blue  
                         business suit. He was a banker  
                         I could tell.

So blue trains rush by in my sleep.  
Blue herons fly overhead.
Blue paint cracks in my
arteries and sends titanium
floating into my bones.  
Blue liquid pours down
my poisoned throat and blue veins
rip open my breast. Blue daggers tip
and are juggled on my palms.
Blue death lives in my fingernails.

If I could sing one last song
with water bubbling through my lips
I would sing with my throat torn open,
the blue jugular spouting that black shadow pulse,  
and on my lips
I would balance volcanic rock
emptied out of my veins. At last
my children strained out
of my body. At last my blood
solidified and tumbling into the ocean.
It is blue.  
It is blue.  
It is blue.