Uncategorized – Page 33 – Aremyfeetofftheground

33: A mantis in Atlantis

Under the sea
Under the sea
Life is much better
Down where it’s wetter,
take it from me!*

I was strapped to a stool
facing a desk
on a concrete floor
under a hot light
Behind the desk sat a Mantis.
Unusually large (s)he was.
Triangular visage.
Opaque eyes.
Saw-toothed arms, chitinous wings.
Elbows on the desktop. (do they have elbows)
It wanted me to play the shell game.
With actual shells.
It lifted the centre shell
and placed a copper key underneath it.
I knew it would fit my locks.
With a whiz whiz here
and a whiz whiz there,
it stymied my eyes.
Then chittered out some tiny bubbles.
I was to pick.
Left-hand one: empty.
Right hand one: The key! I had done it!
Whereupon it raised up a grassy palm,
stopping my reach.
Pointed to the centre one.
I lift.
It’s me, miniature me. Runs around with a puny scream.
Mantis makes a grab. Stuffs mini me into mandibles.
Reaches out with saw-toothed arms…

*Disney

Watch your tongue

So close, so comfortable.
Confident, and cocky.
The tongue to the teeth.
It whistles and wounds,
Tickles and titillates.
But, have an eye on avarice,
lest the teeth, with a bite, rebel.
And often check for unlearned lessons
and Egos prone to swell.

In print!

Just received the book in the mail. Three of my pieces are in it.
I’m pretty happy about that!

??

Don’t speak in questions,
my dear.
It makes one think you don’t have any statements.
And, after all, you don’t really need
our approval.
We know what you mean,
without the squiggles.

The story

Someday soon,
by chance foreseen,
I may be on the roadside,
with shaky and doubtful thumb.
Hoping to connect to anywhere.
Fearing to squander the story
that my Lord has yet to write.

Over-sensitive

Fresh red road stain
and I don’t know who it was that bled out
in sudden surprise
seconds left of innocent life
and that’s how it works,
this sadness.

Always falling when you come calling

Slate grey bird
high high up
sails slowly and grandly
skimming the underbellies of grumbling cloudbanks
Pteranodon of today
we think he summons the outliers of fabulous flocks-
chortling geese bound for southern climes-
the Flying “V”‘s of fall.

The Difference

Clarice awakes,
but her dream abides.
Don’t be offended when she speaks pleasantries,
or not at all.
What you might hear is only a placeholder
for a short story of ten thousand pages.
She’s seen a distant horizon, but can’t get there.
Knows the true names of our colours,
and how to ask questions of God.
In the saga of her sleep,
charging. Unresponsive.

Billy’s Boots

“Be a man.” Yes, they are all men. I am almost ashamed to be of the same species. Great cautionary tale.

Within A Forest Dark

Rebirth of Cool, Mod and Skinhead Clothing, Dublin

At night, Billy sits with Brother John and the guys at their WAR house in the Panhandle as they watch the videos of the National Socialist Party. Billy always sits on the scratchy green tweed sofa that reminds him of his Granny’s but Brother John’s smells like earth and rain and the chocolate smell of mildew.

It is Hitler’s birthday. Mother Beulah has made a Nazi cake in the colors of the flag. She sets it on the oilcloth. Her arms are exposed and giggling like Granny’s. He imagines them soft to the touch. In the center of the sheet cake she had written in a thin chocolate scrawl: Happy Birthday, Hitler! Mama Beulah has arthritis and her hands weren’t steady but Brother John doesn’t fault her.

Billy gets a corner piece of the cake, where the piped chocolate icing has bunched…

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The spirit is willing

The ghost plans a jailbreak.
Pinpricks of itch are felt in unscratchable places.
Toothpicks to the temple-
bookmarks of dying dreams.
Figurative fingers squeeze the liver, now the spleen.
The heart and the brain begin their acquaintance.
Give it up.
Give it up.