GPS

I want to attach a GPS
To all the metaphors
And find out where they have gone.

VT.edu

They don't know why
Someone shoots into a classroom lecture;
Perhaps the Wack Job with the gun
Forgot we're all going to die some day,
Got in a big fucking rush
To shepherd us all bleeding
Off to His own Hell.

Cool

Ask why I'm so cool:
Look! Autumn, '73 --
Hair, jeans, love, peace...Tom.

Haiku for Him

His life ended at
Twelve Twenty Eastern Standard Time
The sea....now his home.

Tom

One afternoon in Tucson
Indoors where it was cool
And you thought I'd forgotten
About that lizard whose tail had
Come off in your hand--cruelly you
Dangled it, wriggling wildly in
My face before dropping it into
That Maxwell House can of sand--
A disembodied tail flopping in
There, and you thought I would
Scream, but I just squealed a little
(I didn't expect it to whip so violently)
Then I lectured you, saying
"It will grow another tail now, you know.
That is how lizards get away!"

So you grinned and bragged to that other kid,
You said your sister read a lot of books
About science and animals and stuff
But still I made you give that lizard's tail
A decent burial (and I swear the lizard
Itself attended--watching from the creosote)...

That sweltering afternoon we were inside,
Enjoying modern evaporative cooling
When a voice outside the bedroom
Door barked "What are you kids doing in there?"
Annoyed at the interruption I snapped
"We're just playing Doctor!"
And neither one of us understood
Why the door flew open, or why your dad and
My mom both leaped into the room, and then
We did not figure out for a few years yet (god,
We were young!) why they were laughing and
Jabbering incoherently back down the stairs while
We stood there,
Perplexed,
Fully clothed,
Prescribing candy pills from
A toy doctor-kit,
With stethoscopes in hand.

For Tom...
September 30, 1956 - February 7, 2007

Damn Kitten

by CeeJ

At first I didn't even notice
Him hopping around our feet
At Bill's farm
As we unloaded horses and sorted
Through bridles from the shed.
He was chasing leaves and bugs
Then he looked up at me,
One big sparkly green eye, and
One eye that was torn flesh bulging
From nothingness on the right side
Of his face; a ruptured eye, a brown
Blob of bio-ugliness rocking
Around, stuck to the socket,
Grotesquely rotating
As he moved his other eye. Then
He looked right into our faces and
Squeaked, and you turned positively
The color of grief, so of course I said
Let's take him, and we bundled him
Off to the gentle hands of my vet, saying
I don't know who the hell
He belongs to--guess it's me, now.
They kept him overnight,
Called me the next day,
And now I'm lying here
So tired my bones
Feel like shattered xylophone keys
And my hands are cramped from
Writing notes on tired essays,
And he has curled up on the pillow,
Puffs of purr on my face, warm
Where something wet rolls from
My own right eye, soothing a
Tiny scratch that reminds
Me I almost left him in the grass.

Haiku

The wind sighed, "You do
Not read music so what gives
You the right to sing?"