Politico had an article about human organ printing and manufacturing which has crept into my psyche, and I am working it out through this week's cartoons...

********************

Memoir of an Ice Cube 

I am an ice cube in a sea of soda,

lolling here for hours. I am among

this caravan of swirling ice cubes,

stale sea of soda. Sit here

in the shallow end, feet swinging, swirling, shriveling:

how small this tall glass is. I once thought

it was everything.

*********************

Albino Corporation

  

Summer

& the kids are dropping

aluminum cans like business cards

that read “I’m young, I’m wild, I’m free.”

Skateboarding beneath a rotisserie sun,

Delicious skins frying across the tippy toed length

of June, July & August. Meanwhile

a man collects up all their cans

like a stooped November custodian

gathering musky gym towels

“I will make a profit of your sinful youth,”

he grunts while a sticky genie

composed of sugary pools

of caramel colored sodas

entwines

his albino corporation.

Suicide Beard 

Once we go beyond logic,

and have faith in the suicide beard,

we can accept that the luscious little ladies

will spot the white claws

in the fur and run, for the nearest fountain of youth,

as that is their privilege.

And as this seine

of aging bearded men tightens

around the one lost little lamb, squeezing

all the love out of her, we will run our fingers

through these white swords,

and she will run her fingers

through these white swords,

drawing kisses, never blood,

& the suicide beard

will dream of pennies on the eyes,

as the nubiles haul ass

through the valley of the shadow of beard.

                 ********************                  

                                                                                                                                  

Hip

The doctor’d prescribed a pill, it’d killed the crocodile

in my hip. Instead, it turned the rest of my body into a swamp. 

So I’d given up the swamp-pills, and nature breathed new life

into the crock.  I’d gone a week with the crock in my hip pocket,

till I just had to get away from his gnawing companionship. Popped

a pill and all was well.  Till the dizziness returned. I started fantasizing

about just hacking the leg off.  Kept thinking about that

mythological bottle of booze: the civil war solution. 

Those few numbing swigs of whiskey, as some sawbones

amputates the drumstick, dipped in the gangrene

flavored batter.  I fantasized about going on Disability, 

buying a cheap van, stealing a page from Steinbeck

and traveling the US of A .

*********************

*********************

dog

dog has a name

dog loves to bark

dog runs like a fugitive

dog is in love with the cat

the orange one

with the bad temper

the rat killer

the killer of rats

dog has an address

dog rarely receives mail

from credit card companies, or

publisher’s clearing house

dog never worries about identity theft

no social security number

no investments

dog has a name,

a bark, a reputation

all the old ladies wave

and call her by name.

********************

Lost

 Currents

invite me---

I swim away

from my work.

I am free

                & lost.

********************

********************

Illusions

  

Body and mind

touch. No pass-

ports involved.

********************

   

The Basket Man 

The Basket Man moved through a numbing aura

with a hunch of shoulder that appealed to he, and only he.

He cleaned his hands constantly, and then returned

to his hiding place, cradling the face of a wild animal;

glaring green eyes in his belly. The Basket Man

had marvelous eyes but shared them with no one:

he was like a selfish boy with a bag of cat-eyed marbles;

he couldn’t bear finger prints, alien whorls and ridges

upon he, or his possessions, instead, preferred the shoulder

of his basket. The Basket Man found much to his chagrin

that the critics underneath his fingernails, and in the folds

of his neck and in the shallow pond of belly lint, chattered

on whether he slumbered or wakened: “damned critics

won’t leave me alone.”

Many an evening, The Basket Man sat, quill in hand, composing

his memoirs. Because he lived in a basket he didn’t work

at the proverbial “big oak desk,”  or the  tiny “school kid’s desk”; 

not even an orange crate. He sat, instead, upon arthritic knees, 

balancing a legal pad into the long hours of the night.

So far he’d only come up with the title:  “Damned Critics

won’t leave me alone.” Hell, it was a beginning;

Thursday the 21^st  the Basket Man lay in a cocoon of chill

and sweat. Unclaimed, like a knife used in a murder, and tossed

casually between the gratings of a storm drain. Meanwhile,

“something, once anchored” roamed the house

seeking a way out.

Alien Agenda

When they look at you

like you’re an alien,

smile.

When they look at you

like you’re an alien,

don’t raise you antenna

and disappear.

When they look at you

like you’re an alien,

don’t make a break

for your flying saucer

even when being pursued

by an ugly torch-bearing mob.

When they look at you

like you’re an alien,

don’t forget

they may be the aliens.

When they look at you

like you’re an alien,

tell them your birth

certificate’s posted

on-line.

When they look at you

like you’re an alien,

tell ‘em your phaser’s

not set

on stun.

          When they look at you

          like you’re an alien

invite them to your planet.

********************

Incubator

I vomited the creature---

It swam in the toilet bowl.

I tried to flush the abomination,

but it refused to be sucked down the hole.

Tentacles, sprouting at will.

Dozens of rubbery arms whipping wildly,

water exploding,

because of this creature who had defiled me.

I jerked the bathroom door shut,

heard that thing thud on tile,

tenacious tentacles lashing out,

throat filling with bile.

And then my stomach cramped again.

Forced into puking,

I threw this new one into the microwave,

and gave it a good nuking.

Body and tentacles,

sizzling like bacon,

thought it was dead,

but was mistaken.

Opened the microwave door.

As I did, I prayed,

but found myself attacked

by mouths like razor blades.

Then began feeling more cramps.

This time two creatures

forced their way out.

I was weak, throat burning.

unable to shout.

Lay down on my side

on cold dead tile,

an army slithering from my mouth.

Vile!

Thousands of stinging cuts.

I wanted to scream,

I wanted to believe,

this was nothing but a monstrous dream.

When I woke,

I felt squirming inside me,

they had laid their babies,

Survival would be denied me.

They were growing,

being nourished,

I was the living, breathing, incubator,

and these monsters would flourish.

********************

********************

Glasses

The glasses

w/ those rectangular lenses,

they brought mathematics

to her eyes,

to the hump of her nose;

geometry to the crow’s feet,

the laugh lines.

 

She could immediately see

Einstein and Pythagoras

using her oval face as a chalkboard.

Working out theorems

formulas and proofs

that explained her.

********************

Sweet Addiction

Mister Eye, walking into the Disease Priest

Coffee Shop and Bakery “we make disease

sweeter and sweeter,” mutters one of the many priests,

carrying trays of diabetic delight, pouring cups

of coffee, stirring in  lumps of sugar and gulps

of cream. Mister Eye says not a word, merely watches

the smearing of goo over lips, the waggling of tongues

like acrobatic octopi;  “addiction is our bread and butter”

mutters the high priestess of tooth decay and amputation;

“blood sugars rise and blood sugars fall,” squeal a boy

and girl in training;

 

Mister Eye makes no eye contact,

instead orders the same cup of Joe: black, he has

had every morning since the invention of “sugar

sickness”. In the back room

one of the squealing trainees,

clutching a sugar cube,

is about to drop it in:

“don’t mess with that one,”

says the high priestess glumly. 

“He’s a watcher, that one.”

Mister Eye inspects his cup,

while watching the ruination

of another batch of human beings,

like a tray of burnt Cinnabons tossed in the alley

and gobbled by the diabetic dogs of the neighborhood.

********************

********************