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?"

Flea (by CeeJ)

At the Cafe Acoustic an
Open Mike player said,
"I cut my finger today
And it hurts, But I think
The endorphins are
Kicking in now, and
I will play through the pain
For you." And he played
Well--beautifully, with arpeggios
And open chords that rang
Like waterfalls, but his
Songs sucked; he sang
Maudlin lines about
Children and a dead friend
None of us knew.

But anyway I did not care
About his pain,
Or pity him because
I know about a bass player
Who worked so hard,
Slapped and pulled
So passionately night
After night that he
Had to put superglue in the holes
The strings had torn into
His flesh. He said
Every night he'd have A Big roadie
Hold his arm still while
He put superglue into cuts so deep you
Could see bone in there, and he'd
Scream My hand's on fire, but then keep
Playing and I used to
Think about that man, pouring
Superglue into bone-deep bleeding holes
In his hands, and crying from the
Pain as he played, and I would think:
"Man, that is Love."