Bluto, the world’s strongest man, could tear bread loaf-sized pieces off a steel-belted tractor tire with his bare hands.

But he could not lift a single smithereen of his sensitive Piscean heart when Lily, the luscious, leggy Leo trapeze artist, left him for steely-eyed Arien Karl, the literate and literary lion tamer.

Horoscopic Circus, Act II

She was a Cancer Dragon. Like catnip to the Piscean Tiger, whose feline DNA was his Achilles heel. Especially when she wore heels. And nylons. The end is nylon, he thought. I love you she said. I love you more he affirmed. And firm he soon became. Then being the ringmaster, she opened her mouth and incinerated him -- as only dragons can….

(20 minute poetry)

Popeyed
I look at the goil with the olive complexion
and the ink drips like oil from the well of my fountain
pen.

It was always the goil that Bluto desired as Wimpy ate burgers
looking awfully tired.

Though Popeyed I tried
to make Bluto see
that the goil in question
was the goil for me.

Lliving a cartoon is like life on the moon where there's no air to breathe, but being here where the atmosphere is rare unlike the burgers that Wimpy won't share
is fine.

The goil is mine and if I eats my spinach there will come a time
when I knock
Bluto out.

(It always sounds like goil to me when Popeye says it.

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
- W. B. Yeats:  The Second Coming

Dachshund

Bred to burrow after badgers,
what's he doing here?

Terrorizing the underwear
behind my couch.

Is he a true hund,
or just a pan-fried sausage
with a Bluto chest?

I wonder what they called him
back then, in the Black Forest,
when dogs were dogs.

Tracker? Hunter?
Try: Baron Von Putt-Putt Tootsie Roll.

I'm Scot myself.
My people once sacked York.

No, this isn't York.
It's Plano, Texas.

Don't think a Dachshund and a Scot
can't sack Dallas from here.

Until then, we play our little game:
What rough ****** slouches toward my underwear?

i went to her grave again last night
over eight hours away, i went and laid next
to her ashes
i brought her brand of cigarettes
her brand of beer
i brought her a crossword puzzle

she didn’t have much to say
so i did most of the talking
as usual

like when i was six and Tony Bluto would
pick on me during recess, i’d slam my book
bag into the ground and hide underneath the
kitchen table as she’d peak under her glasses
as she’d peck at the typewriter

“problems, Denny,” she would say

and i’d unload

when i went to her grave again last night,
over eight hours away, her ashes laying there
alone, i unloaded

but nothing happened, nothing was said,
and i ended the evening with a question

“how do i become a better person,”
and that’s when it began to rain

***** made it rain.

cross my fingers hope to fly
before my heart stops,
and I
wonder why some birds have
wings but prefer to walk,
nothing to say and yet you talk
must be
something in the water.

If I catch the dawn before it can break
would you take me to your heart or
sit there in the dark
complaining?

I need automatic tracking because
I'm cracking up and have the need to know
just where it is cracked people go,

well?
as John Wayne said,
'the hell you are'
in that drawl he had.

excuse that flashback
lost my track there,
where am I now?

You did that on porpoise
said Popeye to
Pluto,
it's Bluto not Pluto you Dumbo,
said Bluto.

when the cartoons come to life
it's time to get a life
or at least a stronger
coffee.

posited puzzling apt aperçu...

While pondering particular
theme to address
amidst tangled wide, whirled
webbed mental skein
today November third
two thousand twenty two,
unexpected Möbius strip
tease conundrum unforeseen,
yet as avid aspiring wordsmith
only now I became keen,
which unflagging vexillological,

theoretical, rhetorical, philosophical...
narratological, linguistical, judgmatical
historical, fantastical, didactical,
and bibliographical predicament
may not suddenly find me
flush with green
i.e. profuse legal tender,
but merely thought provoking
puzzlement addresses following quandary
stuck within gray matter of pate

impossible mission to differentiate
jagged fine line between
passion and obsession
case in point strong
affinity to write of late,
cuz yours truly susceptible
toward compulsion that doth not abate,
and mind boggling to wed healthy
love of language analogous as mate
nsync with psychological trait,

viz excessive compulsion
diagnosed years gone
by courtesy professional
mental health specialists, did annotate,
and I admit behavior impossible to satiate,
thus generating aforementioned query
how does one (me) segregate
productive interest versus excessive,
née fanatical all consuming -
affinity towards English language

I loopily, quirkily verily narrate
oft times burning midnight oil
(albeit figuratively alluded
to wicked mister Arson Wells) witness
as logophile doth painstakingly toil
bajillion cerebral threads to uncoil,
whereby utilizing figurative tweezers
uprooting, untangling rhyme I embroil
(even using ****** Doo conditioner)
metaphorically beneath mine royal

hirsute (Scottish) matted topsoil
ultimately bringing in top gun
uncannily resembling gargoyle
shape shifting between
comical characters such as
Popeye and Beetle Bailey
at lightspeed as if
greased with Olive Oyl
so watch out Bluto,
get ready for turmoil!