Taxidermist!
You haven't earned this
You  haven't earned the right to decide
whether my burial should be feral
Or not at all
Instead stand tall
Stuffed with white cotton wool
On the plaque it says your name
Not mine or my family's
I should have been buried beneath the trees
With the earth and the dirt
So new life could germinate out of my death's birth
But instead look at me now
I'm just a coin in your pocket
A note in your wallet
And for those who want it
A source of passing fancy
That is if they ever do get bored of the TV
But hopefully,
If they do see me
They question the perversity of it all
And wonder...

Who spends their time stuffing cotton wool into dead animals?

I live in a world
Where we pet deer with cars
So we set our emotions in jars
The cops drive with broken headlights
And nobody knows what's right
Yet we're not allowed to fuss
Because we're on a prison bus
So I dream of the days
I'll get to see the freeway

You got in my car
That didn't go far
You decided to call a taxi
Because I was so taxing
I got under your skin like a cyst
And I became your taxidermist

You jumped in my town car
That became a clown car
You made me feel like a star
And then left me on Mars
Where I lived out the back of my hearse
Patiently waiting for a compatible nurse

I found myself in an ambulance
Withdrawing from all your medicine
I couldn't get out of the trance
Your bulldozer left me embedded in
After being rolled in the muck
I became a monster truck

I wish you were a convertible
So I could at least get a nibble
For you handle a road of ugliness with grace
It's the same daunting road I cowardly face
We just can't travel together
That's how we'll travel forever
I just wish you could know
The places my car will go

Grandpa melted two squirrels together using the fat from their bodies after skinning the skin from their bellies.  They were dead before he began this project, of course.  He's a taxidermist.  
Grandpa is surely to blame for many a nightmare–
The jars of eyes and teeth collected from years of scraping corpses off the highway.
But as the Buddhists preach, I've found some blessings in his macabre pastime.  
Most of my friends shy away from the undesirable aspects of life;
Death bringing up the forefront.  
I feel that grandpa's melancholy menagerie has helped me
Cozy up to the idea that despite life's bountiful beauty,
A dark side coexists intertwined-
But darkness is not always
A bad thing...
Is it?

I am what I am
So please accept me ma'am
Remember! My name is Sam
Who likes jam
And who drove a Dodge Ram
On a dam
When there was no traffic jam

Today is Tuesday, Oct. 7, the 280th day of 2014 with 85 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn.


A thought for the day:


“Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.”

Lao Tzu



Quotes for the day:



“Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.”

Alan Watts



"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen."

Michael Jordan



"Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them."

Ralph Waldo Emerson





Poetry


Excelsior



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said:
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!

"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!


Health and Beauty Tip


Choosing Eyeliner



Make sure the color of your eyeliner complements your eyes. Dark brown eyes benefit from plum shades. If you have lighter eyes, try navy and charcoal. Brown eyeliner works well no matter what color your eyes are!


JOKES


Taxidermist



This guy walks into a bar down in Alabama and orderes a mudslide. The bartender looks at the man and says "You're not from round here are ya?"

"No" replied the man, "I'm from Pensylvania." The bartender looks at him and syas "Well what do you do in Pensylvania?"

"I'm a taxidermist." said the man. The bartender, looking very bewildered, now asked "What in the world is a tax-e-derm-ist?" The man looked at the bar tender and said "Well, I mount dead animals."

The bartender stands back and hollers to the whole bar which is staring at him "It's okay, boys! He's one of us!"



No Ears



There was this man who was in a horrible accident, and was injured. But the only permanent damage he suffered was the amputation of both of his ears. As a result of this "unusual" handicap, he was very self-conscious about his having no ears.

Because of the accident, he received a large sum of money from the insurance company. It was always his dream to own his own business, so he decided with all this money he had, he now had the means to own a business. So he went out and purchased a small, but expanding computer firm. But he realized that he had no business knowledge at all, so he decided that he would have to hire someone to run the business.

He picked out three top candidates, and interviewed each of them.

The first interview went really well. He really liked this guy. His last question for this first candidate was "Do you notice anything unusual about me?" The guy said, "Now that you mention it, you have no ears." The man got really ups! et and threw the guy out.

The second interview went even better than the first. This candidate was much better than the first. Again, to conclude the interview, the man asked the same question again, "Do you notice anything unusual about me?"

The guy also noticed, "Yes, you have no ears." The man was really upset again, and threw this second candidate out.

Then he had the third interview. The third candidate was even better than the second, the best out of all of them. Almost certain that he wanted to hire this guy, the man once again asked, "Do you notice anything unusual about me?"

The guy replied "Yeah, I bet you are wearing contact lenses."

Surprised, the man then asked, "Wow! That's quite perceptive of you! How could you tell?"

The guy burst out laughing and said you can't wear glasses if you don't have any ears!



The birds and the bees


A father asked his son, Little Johnny, if he knew about the birds and the bees.

"I don't want to know!" Little Johnny said, bursting into tears.

Confused, his father asked Little Johnny what was wrong.

"Oh Pop," Johnny sobbed, "For me there was no Santa Claus at age six, no Easter Bunny at seven, and no Tooth Fairy at eight. And if you're telling me now that grownups don't really have ***, I've got nothing left to believe in!"


HAVE A VERY NICE TUESDAY!

A plastic bag is snagged in the branches where I can't reach to stop its crackled song. The bag is an *****—its kidney? Stomach? Heart?—of the thing that's dying. The thing's given pills and powders, and graveyards are robbed to replace its parts. When it dies, it'll be brought to the taxidermist to be stuffed, and its stiffened corpse will be strung in lights—a beacon for people to arrive, two-by-two, and scoop out the void from behind its glass eyes. And when the void has been doled around, the dead will shuck, jive, and shuffle step to plastic song.

mornings ice
feels fresh
from nights grubby paws
walking through a place
where i don't feel lost
leaves sowed on humble branches
brushes through my hair
apples float
in the simplest form
we take our breaks
from the depth of others eyes
as they stare with pandemic ideas
so frightening
makes the ground swallow you past your knees
second breath you take
a sticky melody
collection of  black-lights
guides a taxidermist  towards your heart
only can you
write yourself out
with occult-ed stories
about space and time
but still its all hieroglyphics
to that diamond cut monster
  his  malice screams
make your ears reach for fairest of volumes
crawling for that exit
the one you painted as a child
scenery of  leaves
and apple trees
you shut your eyes
and all has stopped
your nerves start to float
your mind cradles sanity
but still that voice lingers
the voice of complexity

You carry me down the hill with the moon
nestled deep within your pockets.
Your warmth resounds deep into my hollow
aura, smoldering in a sweet smoke.
You inject your daily embalming love deep
under my skin, the rivers running white.
You tuck my chin under the railroad tracks
with the careful delicacy of a skilled taxidermist.
There was nothing romantic in the way I faded
to amber, nor in the way your hands
folded into crescents and pulled down a
tiered curtain of blackness, speckled with
the eyes of your descendants.

The fire burned in the hearth upon a summer's day, in the land of  blazing abnormality.
The wire haired dog laid silently in his basket, without reaction.
Two other friendly dogs attended, but still he laid.
A silent half giraffe was stroked, he or she, was also still.
Herring gull swung in a cage, motionless and the peacock perched in reticence,  as he was strutted on the cabinet no more.
Half a seal poked its head out from the wall, while the antelope looked on.
And still they sat and chatted, not an eyelid was batted, as they sat and supped their ale, while the air took on the stale scent of musty beings.
The atmosphere in the place was tranquil.
Death, so obvious within this amazing place
Ghastliness of death, was somehow so respectful.
As they gainfully employed the taxidermist, who did a magic job!
(c) Livvi

too safely tucked under
too neatly folded skin,
as if it will never be worn again.

grow out of it,
it was said.
i might
i can
would i?

these embroidered butterflies on the white blouse
wings-
fluttering, putrid
thoughts
like a runaway train
no destination, and no hint of stopping
afraid that i'd spit out words i was
afraid to say

a spaghetti-strapped tank top
with nothing left under my sleeves
and calls were answered
and among echoes i lay
and try to recall who i was the day before

bold prints, too bold
you know what they say,
a leopard never changes its spots.
true, i wished.
and if i could catch these fleeting moments,
i would
and i would tell you
that it was real

in nothing i felt most comfortable
and nothing i felt
no one will stay
not even i.

drew maps to places i would bring no one to
and out of the sins committed
i wished someone plundered
these mounted trophies
i'd created and soon destroy
the belief that these goodnight kisses i find in the morning
were planted by the taxidermist

some days, i don't do my laundry.
i know it's simple, one two three.
instead, eight nine ten steps,
pick up this little black dress.

it's uncomfortable, but it's not.

let me please my demons once more.

after all,
they are the only ones i could speak to
after every one has went to bed.

The hunter’s bullet lodges in my side
like the pin bones of salmon wedged
in the back of my throat.

My life balances on the border
between my favorite comfort foods,
and the blade of the taxidermist.

You would make me into a trophy,
gutted and cured to become an ornament,
in your seasonal hunting cabin.

Raw honeycomb, Caribou marrow,
salmon roe stuck to my tongue,
psalms of my home made flesh,

call me back into my survival
instincts for my sleeping children.

She who outruns deer & devours
strong bucks with antlers the size of sequoias
could not outrun the champion sprinter,

American made bullets.

But when you realize your rumpus
disturbed wild things, there is no time to reload.
You brought a potluck into the den
of a slumbering mother with cubs.

My teeth are agonizingly real
And my jaws are in your belly,
rooting for the lost rib of Adam.

Every poet is a fake
eyewitness, peddler of make-believe hearsay,
A conveyor of love he never knew
in a city he never saw in a way to make you
feel the passion as if it were true,
He is an air-brusher of reality,
Thus a proselytizer of the Absurd:
That you can paint pictures with words;
That you can travel by verbs;
That you can conjure nouns by saying them;
That you can lead several lives within your only one.

Every poet is a fake
taxidermist, seller of second-hand stuffings
of souls that were never alive

Every poet is a fake
imperialist, would be explorer-***-colonizer
of the terra incognita of your mind

Every poet is a fake
poet

Stuffed bird turns
& turns again
while the snapple man
snaps & cracks a cackle
& the slow doll dances
a waltz with the
taxidermist's daughter.

According to Christian tradition
Lucifer was once God's favorite angel
Until he believed he could control things
A pride which turned disastrous.
Studies show many human addictions
Start this way too.
It started out as an almost healthy desire
To trim the extra fat from my bones
I was called disciplined
Told it was so good that I was finally taking care of myself
It went from eating healthy
To crunching numbers in the food I was eating
To stuffing myself like a taxidermist
To ripping every inch of stuffing out of my gut
I realize I have a problem
When I can't recognize myself in the mirror
When I can't eat a meal without going to the bathroom afterwards.
They never told me I was sick
Say "you look so good, honey
Have you lost weight?"
I tell them I'm suffering
Say "you don't look bulimic."
Every other girl who got my kind of sickness went to the hospital
I was told to smile
As they made an example of me
See, they thought everything I touched turned to gold
But it was only skin deep
When I stuck that finger out
To touch the back of my throat
It pulled a trigger.
My esophagus was rotting from the inside out
Am I still beautiful?
Will I still be beautiful
When the only thing left of my body
Is its ashes?
No matter what size my body is
There will always be a coffin small enough for it
My clavicle wants to catch my tears
Until I will not let myself cry
Because the brine in my eyes
Increases salt retention
Causing my face to swell and look pudgy
You're doing this to yourself anyway, darling
I evolve from a hawk to a dove
Go from dominating to meek, in the background
My wings are so small I cannot even fly well
Can't see food without feeling sick
Even now, I want
I want to scrape the back of my throat
Until my body releases its bile
I want to layer my inside walls with magazine covers
Say look what you could've been been!
But you failed
You were a bad bulimic
But at the time
You were never "good" enough to get into treatment
The backwards logic of an eating disorder
As it feeds itself with the subject's insecurities
It's like a token economy
I put coins in
My inadequacies solidified
And I become motivated to get skinny
Notice, I didn't say healthy.
Then, I remember
I am worth getting better
My veins, the nerves in my teeth
They nearly collapsed and gave up on me
But I will not give up on me
I will recover
This is not a health conscious habit
It is writing my obituary for me
I am recovering
I am progressing
This attempt to look like Reece Witherspoon gone awry
Is no more.
I am becoming myself again
Falling back in love with my thighs and my mind
I am healing, everyday
The devil in my brain
Will not hold me bound
I have created an equally powerful God against this
I keep praising her
It is my own name
She is my better self
My real self
And she is watching over me.

****** words paint the flowers a crimson red.
A dove recites the end of all mankind.
Rounding out his edges and sharpening his knives.
Amorous lovers ride the wave of life.
Heart worms my body still tries to burn away.

Kindly, I delude god and myself into a dream.
Every mindless prayer, my secrets scream.
And only my love remains.
To this day, he accepts the woman he lost.
Opals eyes that cry remorse.
No reply.

I can live without the friends I knew.

And each and every missing piece.
Morose taxidermist lives her dreams.

Sullen chords play the lonely song.
And I tell myself that I am strong.
Do the roses in your garden look pretty?

Classic trepidation, stationary with the aura of
Coincidence, slit myself and call it skyward thinking
Sinking feelings that argue for a sudden resignation
Conscientiousness, leprous and typesetting

Intimate knowledge that I disclose verbatim cannot, and should not, ever be used against me.
Interest infected through wavelengths, non responsive partly cause of the rupturing that's been running through my dreams.
Scant as fixes to the problems, overblown and oft forgotten, lisping when I speak of this Epiphany.
Taxidermist furnish houses, howling wolves that get devoured, sounds like God and hell and them finally worked out peace.

Just cosmetic, slightly pathetic the ease at which the mind elapses
Classics retconned till nothing's left except the years of influence
Invested in the melancholy, snobs lobbyist and in distant memories

Eye spine a different nine, stolen time
Tombstones compliment our skyline
A coffin slipping itself into its grave
Shallow dirt under the cement
Did she find what she was looking for?
A shadow slips behind the stage
Vacant household in a silent silhouette
Masterpiece purchased for its frame
A Head mounted on a wooden plaque
Taxidermist trophy husband - prideful
Mistaken muse entropic groping
"I want you inside me "
Vored perception of a lustful vivisection - a pause
My keys- the door

you drink cocktails on wednesday mornings
to feel the rush past your tastebuds
telling your brain
this is good- this makes me happy- give me more
i gave you my all till i had nothing left to give
now you kept my heart
got it stuffed and propped up on your desk
right next to the post it’s and the stapler you stole
propped up like a proud taxidermist
showing off the new addition to the collection
the rare one- it put up a good fight but you
you conquered
in the end.

proud trophy hunter
you
are the animal.

There walking the length of a promenade,
from one end to the other and back again,
or labouring in vain in some little way,
in plot of earth or garret shot right through with light,
throwing dust sheets over all the old furniture,
in that old country house somewhere far off,
and finding the labour light for the season that’s in it.
Or dwelling in folly on another thought,
giving over to the human brain to the taxidermist,
master and subject to the other organs.
So found upon a hill in a lonely place,
above all the lands of the earth
surveying the wasted days of yore,
and waving goodbye to the sun.

i mount my heart on a wall,
still and discolored
where my taxidermist hands had pressed.

it breathes life into dead walls:
a hanging irony made of
soft cyclamens
and the closed, white fist of a tormented girl.

i mount my teeth on a wooden wall,
write my letters,
pour salt on spaces where i used to stand;
may i not stand here
once again.

i mount my hands on a wooden wall;
they do not knock. i do not answer.

silent as a lamb — down to a pit,
i watch the sheer cliff of my back
from where i have jumped
and the sundry sorrows shrink
into black, blinking dots
like a hidden villain
exposed.
i fall over myself
like in a slow-moving dream —
lead-like it flows like the acheron river.
and here comes the ferryman.

Every poet a
taxidermist, preserving
their beings with words.

The room stayed locked for nigh on thirty years
But I could hear the bubbling inside
A smell like meat rotting
Wafted along the hall
I would listen as he tip-toed
Along the floorboards to the door
Then it would creak open
And I see him dressed the next morning
Clean shaven and wearing his suit
With not a crease insight
Like the room didn't even exist
Of course we knew it did though
I asked Mother one cold winters morning
What does daddy do in that room
And she told me it was a secret room
Little boys weren't to know
Now thirty years on he's past
And finally I have a key
I slowly unlock the door and take a breath
Inside are animals of all different sizes
Stuffed and looking grand
Father was a taxidermist
Nothing unnatural all along

it is a tableau.    oh!

made of moles. he

is a taxidermist

his partner works the pound shop

i hear.



all are around a manger



we have moley the ****** with molef,

angel moliel, the black winged one, little

baby molus

asleep in some hay



we three moles,  best thing ever



moleperds watching stuff at night



on e bay or view it in the shop



they call it a nativity. molivity.



oh!



tableau



. moles .



(so my timeline is  now advertising moles…..hahaha)

Who didst unknowingly, unquestionably,
and unwittingly script vitality
and the prologue to Thanksgiving,
(which theme poem initially written)
about three hundred and ninety seven years,
and nine months after February third 1621,
yet genesis of American November tradition
pronouncing Meleagris gallopavo domestico
sacrificial bird spurred them to revolt enmasse.

Wise no adulation, dedication and gratification
not emphasized the other three hundred
and sixty four days a year
question their role as consumed
end product of taxidermist,
gnome hatter clucks fie against industry where
when thanksgiving gobbledygook brouhaha
glib lets deified whereat
a countless range of turkeys sacrificed veer

rill lee with commendable,
gratuitous and laudatory plaudits
bequeathed to the cook,
who held as the grand umpire
calling bastes time to bring in the pitcher -
though such an action tends
tubby viewed as fowl, with tail feathers there
be fluttering in sync with shutterfly flapping
at least one angry bird

sent to the slaughterhouse -
whose peck within four square
foot locker enclosure
breeds base sill wrath bone,
which Birdseye view dispensed,
though tis grim fate
doth behoove turkeys to rear
up and protest their predestination
forbidding grim intuition

via special Turkish communication
from axe of cruelty,
the butcher will not deem queer
yet questions pop up why
this singular twenty four hour
Fitbit of time fosters the people
to summon beneficence,
and when whatsapp did appear
rent lee clinched this American custom

squawks back hundreds of years
sans "The First Thanksgiving,"
a spontaneous oscillometer
ocular venerated, feted,
and celebrated requisitioned,
when Governor William Bradford
organized a three-day long feast near
the tip of Cape Cod,
which was too far north
of intended destination.

One month later,
they made maximum headway
to Massachusetts Bay
celebrated Native Americans friends,
the year 1621 feasted
between Pilgrims and Wampanoag
at Plymouth Colony a green day
(know your enemy unsung)
arbitrarily chose spread of turkey,
waterfowl, venison, fish, lobster,

clams, berries, fruit, pumpkin,
and squash mebbe fish fillet
Thanksgiving, currently celebrated
on the fourth Thursday
in November by federal legislation
in 1941 recalling hooray,
or more particularly regaling
the maiden voyage 1620
viz a ship called the Mayflower

ambitiously disembarking stalked
by death and injury
from Plymouth, England
for the New World
after a difficult battle at sea
that lasted 66 days;
the 102 passengers roped a deejay,
which essentially doubled up as conductor,
and struck up psalm songs

for a guiding buoyant gull
they named Oak Kay
of the Mayflower landed near
and the Pilgrims began
to build a new home at Plymouth,
whence an annual tradition hay
begat by founding fathers and Mother Nature
incorporating some marketing spin,
thence United States

by presidential proclamation and fiat Gerry
rigged obeisance (essentially honoring
those brave hearts
that dared traverse
the Atlantic Ocean
without life jackets nor a whit,
they didst courageously ferry
themselves in a rickety craft
(where many perished at sea)

since 1863, and state legislation
since Founding Fathers donned gray
powdered wigs (served
to trumpet political stance)
forging fledgling colonies
slated crude establishments and primitive bidet
wrought forth from deep
within the bowels
of fecund fields broke ranks with Britain,
and pioneered United States array.

The following anecdote baste
upon overactive imagination of mine
in sync with being married
and monogamously living socially chaste
life as a scrupulous anchorite,
whose weather beaten corporeal flesh
plus sabotaged, riddled,
and tuckered psyche effaced
after becoming adequately stuffed,
this turkey (in the straw)

then flapped his trussed wings
(at the speed of sound)
if listening closely echoes refrains
from Amazing Grace,
(which words reflections of John Newton,
a slave trader
who nearly died in a shipwreck,
and who eventually became a minister.
after which he penned the famous words
of "Amazing Grace" for a sermon

for his 1773 New Year's service
at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul)
unable to escape ill fate of mine
i.e. being analogous to cooked goose
subsequently found him interlaced
with various and sundry
other dead animals
fixed to be mounted
(courtesy a taxidermist) on a wall.

The holiday dates back
to November 1621,
when the newly arrived Pilgrims
and the Wampanoag Indians
gathered at Plymouth
for an autumn harvest feast,
an event regarded
as America's “first Thanksgiving.”

Ever since then throve,
a commercialization, commodification,
commination and communication war,
where many a big box department store
(large-scale buildings
of more than 50,000 square feet,
the store is usually plainly designed
and often resembles a large box
for example Walmart, Home Depot,

Tesco, and Ikea are examples
of big-box retailers,
but never forget warehouse clubs
such as Costco and BJ's
considered the original kind
of big-box retailers nevermore
to witness mom and pop businesses
(small business entities
that thrive independently and spurred

pick/pull yourself up
by bootstraps guild den age,
or family-owned) *******
bricks and mortar outfits
prominent during pre industrial
high societies, when love's labour's lost
venerated, serenaded, and promenaded
like The School of Scandal of trysts,
buzzfeeding the literati
with tantalizing amour.