Grandma had a clever dog;
She raised him from a pup.
And when he learned that he could talk
You couldn't shut him up.

His tail was just a nubbin
And he had a flattened mug.
He looked like a short boxer
So grandma named him pug.

Grandma told us what he looked like
For we never saw the cuss.
Her walking, talking, Pug Dog
Was invisible to us.

She said he'd always been around,
As far as she recalled.
Her mother told Pug stories
Before grandma even crawled.

Every family has traditions
And I guess I'd have to say,
Pug tales have been our custom
Right down to this very day.

When grandma gives a long deep sigh
And says, "Now, one day Pug. . ."
We know a story's coming
So we sit down on the rug.

We nestle up beside her
For a tale we've never heard.
And everyone gets quiet
So that we won't miss a word.

The stories grandma tells us
Of the things that dog can do
Can hold any child's attention,
Even fill a book or two.

Grandma's Pug tales outdo Rin-Tin-Tin
And even ******-Doo.
He's a smarter dog than Snoopy;
Smarter than Lassie too.

Pug has traveled  far, to distant lands,
And even outer space.
He's done every thing there is to do
And he's been every place.

He always gets in trouble
For there's nothing he won't try.
He has traveled in a sub-marine,
Flown airplanes in the sky.

He has even been arrested,
More than once broke out of Jail.
But the family loves him dearly
And we always pay his bail.

Where grandma gets her stories from
I guess I'll never know.
But even down through all these years
Her Pug tales grow and grow.

I know someday when grandma sleeps,
And her life on earth is gone,
The Angels all will gather
To hear Pug tales all day long

He sat strapped into his chair like a shrunken scarecrow.
A motorized miniature from the Wizard of Oz, roaming the yellow brick road in his chrome chariot.
His clothes hung from his stick thin limbs like fresh wash on a clothesline.
As new as the day his Mom brought them home from the store.
Adournments for a body on display, not designed to be used.

Around and round circles ring, whole, symmetric complete.
But the coil of life, puzzle pieces in a whirl, must be free, infinite, unfettered.
The text misprinted, the logic destroyed, the flesh misshapen, the extremties unusable.

Tied to his wheelchair like the scarecrow to his rack, guarding a field of linoleum on the hospital ward.
His eyes blind to color and light, I saw only clouds as I peered into his mind with my inquisitive scope.
The boy's hair had the texture of straw on his nubbin head and he smelled of dry leaves before the winter's chill.
His useless limbs twisted and fine, delicate as dried twigs, they draped his John Deere in the vegetable garden of his imprisoned life, bound with the barbed wire of his treacherous genes.

He could move his head, and played a game of cat and mouse to us tinmen, who lumbered by his throne with our toolboxes full of bright scopes and latex gloves, frozen saucers and wasp sharp stings.
His head would bow, limp upon his neck like an overripe sunflower at the end of its stalk.
As our footsteps grew louder his Jack-in-the-box head would fly up, a clown's grin upon his silly face.
Was this the boy or his disease we would wonder despite the reruns of his show.
What could he know? This crumpled moonbeam parading as a child in rumpled clothes.

But one day upon a whim, I took him for a ride into the big blue sky and over the rainbow.
I grabbed the handles of his chair and slowly, slowly began to spin.
His head shot up like a shooting star, his twiggy limbs stiffened even more.
Faster and faster, I whirled him and twirled him.
A twister on the hospital floor, sending doctors, nurses and patients diving for cover as we spun, building like cotton candy strands.
His mouth opened wide, a huge smile spread across his face like sunshine pouring over a mountain's edge.
Beams of light speared through the clouds that filled his eyes.
A rusty hinged croak jumped from his throat as he hee-hawed a laugh as I flung him to the moon, ruby red slippers upon his feet.

i'm looking for the switch
that i know must be there

it's like groping for the light in an unfamiliar room
all i can feel is the rough and rusty edge of an old filing cabinet
of a mouldy moving box,
and so i move deeper into the room
and trip over all the things i threw in there

but i still have to look at them

why didn't i have the foresight to clear a path? and why can't i find the switch?

i don't want to feel so powerfully. i need to find the switch and turn it off. Rip the nubbin out of the wall and eat it like a pill. Class A prescription for the pain. This is why i avoid making connections. i have a weak immune system and i catch feelings like the plague so that all i see are stars and bars.

i feel awash in an ocean of inadequacy and you ask me how i can't see what you see and it's because i can't find that ******* switch. when i think about it i fall about in stitches, while she wishes i wouldn't worry her but how can i even begin to relate when all i've ever felt is alone.

Brief flashes of warmth, and I can already feel the heat fading. i can read you too well and i can see too many steps ahead. so that i charge bravely into that new world knowing full well that in the end i will be alone again and you will have moved above me. all i can see are stars and bars.

i wish i could find the switch.

nick