Wants vs Needs

This is exactly what you wanted
Words lined up in a row
Rhyming and making sort of sense
A work of art if looked at just so

Tilt it to the light a bit
Yes, just like that
Or fold it up like origami
And wear it as a hat

It bothers me little and less
Because I know a poorly kept secret:
That this might be what you wanted
But it sure has hell isn't what you needed

Clickbait Yeti

There are fifty ways to leave your lover
But you won't believe how she left hers!

Lines are out everywhere that I look
Bobbers floating innocently on the surface
But each one armed with a hook
Destined to grab onto my brain
And pull me straight down
To view all the paid advertisements
Until I'm sure I will drown

Sometimes when I click to close
It won't even let me
Just popping up a dialogue box
Sent by the Clickbait Yeti
Who tries to reel you in
And not let you go
Asking with tearful yeti eyes
"Why do you hate me so?
Just click this link and find out!"

He never gives up it would seem
And so I click down the rabbit hole
Into a surreal type dream
Where nothing is ever what it seems
This link to the girl with the big breasts
Sends me to a college study
About which weight loss drug is best
And the inevitable attempt to sell it to me

Lengthen my penis!
Make millions from home!
Learn coding in my free time!
The Clickbait Yeti has endless tricks to play
Slopping the content into an endless feed trough
All making want to take the ultimate drastic action
Of walking away leaving the computer off

But I won't
Because secretly I want everything that Yeti has to offer

I WANT to make millions learning to code at home while lengthening my penis

All that, and more
And that Clickbait Yeti knows it

That Hairy Canadian

That Hairy Canadian

Chased me all over town

I couldn't tell what he wanted

With his bushy all over hair so brown

Waving in the air like a Yeti Bob Ross

All I knew was that he was quite cross

Up one alley and down another
This went on all morning
I thought quickly
At which time
If you need me I'll be next door in the saloon

Criss-crossing town

Yelling back and forth at each other

"What do you want!?"

I'd scream one way

Only to hear him respond

"Mmmrph mnpth mnnooth!!!"

Which must have meant something

Though what, I really couldn't say

In sunny downtown Saskatoon

Until as luck would have it

I ducked into a barber shop

Right next to the saloon

Grabbing scissors in one hand

And the barber's cape in the other

I tackled that hairy Canadian

Wrapping him up in the cape

Trimming the hair on his face

Snips of hair flying all over the place

Until I could make out some semblance of a face

I heard him spout an old old line

"Have you heard about our lord and savior Jesus Christ?"

Eternity

An eternity
Is listening to my workmate spout inanities
Singular in variety
Doled out by the twenties
I'm keeping track of his "Mmm hmm, yep" 's today
And so far he is up to seventy three

An eternity
Is waiting for the next season of my favorite show
When the last season just finished
And I have to pee
Which coincidentally makes everything feel like an eternity

An eternity
Is pretty much any given day
When we are aged three
What with our time sense undeveloped
Clocks still an abstraction
Our days measured by scheduled events
The Teletubbies and Sesame Street
Breakfast lunch snack and dinner
Or when mom and dad get home
With all the down time in between
Measured as unmeasured eternity

GIN

Soaking in an enameled iron tub of gin
Letting it soak it's way in
Poisoning me just as surely
As all those glares and words
You used to assure you'd always win
Leaving me where I'll ever be
Floating in this tub of homemade gin

A Nude Page and The Unwanted Font

There doesn't always have to be words
Filling every nook and cranny
Of every pressed papyrus page
God's image writ in ink
With ten thousand words upon cellulose pulp
Baked in the heat of the fire of a thousand unwanted puppies

Instead let the blank page confront and confound you
Daring you to make a mark with indelible ink
Dripping from your pen as blood from an open wound
Unable to be staunched until consumed
By the greedy empty plains
Contained between the fabric bound covers
Of your obstinately barren book

One word is all it takes to get started
Then another will follow
Which will then require certain others
To adhere to accepted practices
And before you know it you have a sentence
Inevitably leading to paragraphs
Only to evolve into a chapter

But now you've gone and spoiled it
Filling the pages with words as you'd been warned
Wrecking the blank movie screen canvas
Upon which my dreams had been formed

Decorative Journey

Form of a Lockheed Constellation
Details blurred to history
Props spinning as clear lucite disks
Perched eternally over the North Pole
Straining for a destination it will never reach
Pegged to the Earth's axis
Globe turning beneath the hull
Day waxing to night
Night waxing to day
Nose to the sun
Guidance systems down
Blindly seeking the light
Upon it's silvery endless flight

Chance of a Super-Ego

My pants are better'n yours
They've got pockets for days
With flaps that grab the handles of doors
Spilling the contents as they tear in endless ways

My chance is better'n yours
When I draw from the deck
I usually get out of jail for free
Nobody plays Monopoly better'n me

My sycophants are better'n yours
They do most anything if they must
But once they get what they want
Leaving me gasping at their betrayal in the dust

My ants are better'n yours
Their mounds are much bigger
Their tunnels much prettier
As they spread out and aerate the lawn

Pants being the pantsiest
Chance rather the chanciest
Sycophants the sycophantiest
Ants super antsiest

Though perhaps it's just my ego
That's bigger'n better'n yours

Hoverpig

With a lightly heard
"Pew Pew Pew Pew"
Repetitive sound from his repulsors
Hoverpig made his rounds
Exactly six inches above the grounds

Pretending to sniff for truffles under the clump of trees
Tipping his snout to the earth
Snuffing out light jets of air
Poofing up little leaves and pine needles in his activity

Then on to do a few loops underneath the bird feeder
A few turning into a dozen as Hoverpig works up a frenzy
Becoming a pink blur that provokes a small dust devil
Made up of the empty husks and shells of eaten feed

Coming straight off the feeder and making a bee line for me
Hoverpig comes to a silent halt two feet away
His dead electronic eyes strangely alive
In their oversized big brown way

Hoverpig blinks his eyelids at me
Adorned as they are with cheap fake eyelashes
It has the desired effect upon me
And I open the door to let him in

Hoverpig is a superior pet pig in every way
Except for when I try to pet him
His skin is not warm
His hair not as prickly
His nose not as wet
As the pet pig I dreamt of as a child

Or as the real pig that Hoverpig surely dreams of being
In his Hoverpig dreams
In his false electronic nights

Select Copy Paste

Select
Copy
Paste
Our mash-up culture's go to procedure
To contrive and create
To tread water and stay in one place

Where are the creators?
Were there ever really any at all?
Perhaps all these words and symbols
Sounds cymbals and jingles
Images pixels bits and bytes
Evolved on their own with no outside intervention
And we can now just dip our greedy ladle into the vat
Where it all lives in a soupy syrupy mix

Just a dollop of this flavor and that
And a creation is conceived
Slapped up on MyFacePlus
To resounding boos and cheers
The sounds of trolls L-O-L-ing
And the echo chamber telling us we are a genius

Nothing is original
You just might be the lucky bloke who thought to select copy & paste it down

WRITRBOT 2000

"I can't stop thinking of you
In all your glory of visual stereo
Optically split in two
As befitting my depth perception
As you hide square in my center blind spot
Myself a victim of this self deception"

Upon writing this
The WRITRBOT 2000 stopped to contemplate his words
Which flowed on the page in perfect calligraphic script
Two glowing, slowly pulsing eyes taking it in

Gently
WRITRBOT 2000 placed the fountain pen upon the writing table
And moved the one arm it still posessed slowly up to the odd metal face
Which was so formed so as to be recognizable as a face to humans
Yet so unhuman that it gave most humans the creeps
Humans who came to maintain and repair the bot claimed it was something called "uncanny valley"
Which the bot knew nothing about
As that was outside of his parameters of what was needed to be known

One metal jointed digit raised to point upwards upon its hand
The bot slowly moved the mechanism first left then right
Then positioning the digit at a point precisely between the imaginary rays of its vision plane and one imperial foot away from its not-face
Bringing the finger that wasn't quite a finger slowly towards the definitely-not-a-nose

At a certain point in the travel to the surface of its face panel
The digit disappeared from both receptor's field of view

Satisfied with this experiment
The bot picked up the fountain pen once again
To add an after thought to the first five lines:

"Above mentioned concept verified by WRITRBOT 2000 #2543378"

Using the dexterous digits upon its one appendage
The bot folded the paper carefully
Placing it into a brass framed slot on the wall next to the writing desk
Where a faint chuff of air took hold of it
Whisking the poem off into wherever all the pieces of paper went

WRITRBOT 2000 picked out another piece of the paper
Placing it just so upon the smooth writing surface
Grasping the fountain pen in the most absolutely correct way
But it wrote nothing

The bot's un-face slowly tilting back to gaze out a small hole in the only window of the tiny room
The rest of the window glass being glazed non-transparent

Those two glowing eyes stopped pulsing
Their orange light steady as it stared

Awaiting inspiration

Invisible friend

I wish I had a friend

Who lived in my ear

Who'd tell me all the things

That I'd want to hear

Just something small

Really no big deal at all

Warm breath and soft lips

A tiny promise and moist kiss

Tiny little friend tell me true

If it's possible to love you

Partners In Crime

Who would like to go a'murdering with me?
I'll let you help out
This is no one man crime spree

We need a division of labor
So as to perform at our best
With the FBI on our tails
Every little thing will be a test

All those insipids
Who say the same damn things
"Beautiful weather today"
Or
"Wet enough out for you, eh?"

Those are the ones I'll off first
Though I haven't decided on how to do it
But they have to go as they are the worst

Then the ones who always make the noises
Whether unconscious or not
The same pattern of grunts and groans come out of them
But then if you ask them to stop, all they say is "What?"

The guy that stands over me
While I fill out my paperwork
That's definitely the one I'll ice next
Or maybe the one that stands too close and tries to chat
Oh decisions, decisions, they have me so vexed!

But you can see the pattern here
Any old reason will do
Got in my space
Looked at me wrong
Same old reasons
Same old song

Let's brainstorm on getting rid of the bodies
I could use your input and thought
How best to do away with the evidence
With the high risk of getting caught?

I've seen some movies
Taken notes at some shows
I've cribbed pretty good ideas
I jot down what inspires me wherever I go

Well I'm sure we'll come to some arrangement and method
With help from a friend like you
I think I'm safe in saying
We'll get away with everything we do

Negative Image

Everything is upside down and inside out
North is South
Up is down
Black is White
It's the world as I know it
Just seen upon silver colloidal negative film

So I sip my cup of coffee
Sitting upon my favorite chair
Which is firmly planted upon the ceiling
And I lean my head back
So I can gaze at the blue carpeting
With the divots still fresh in it's surface
From when the furniture was where it was supposed to be

The coffee tastes sweet
So I add some sugar
As I enjoy the bitters

I'd contemplate going outside
But I know I'd just fly away into space
Being repelled by the Earth's gravitational push

So I reflect upon the topsy turvy world I've found myself clinging to instead
Where love has turned to hate
Hate has turned to love
Life has turned to death

Though oddly enough
Life is still as capricious a creature as it ever was
Though it is easier to get rid of the bodies now

Nuclear Matriarch Reasons

The rag on my desk is dirty and grey
With one side a printed pink polka dot pattern
Happy to be as it is right where it lay
Though the grimy part wants to get it on with me
And creeps every closer when it thinks I'm not looking
Eager to rub itself on my  hands
In a misnamed attempt to keep me clean

I should really throw it away
As it has been here for weeks
But I keep finding reasons to keep it
What with my computer's various leaks

It's an experimental Hewlitt Packard
Powered by plutonium
Cooled with an exotic mercury mix
Certain to poison anyone who touches it

Don't ask me why I have that either
It seems a dangerous contraption to keep around
Especially seeing as how it is the slowest computer I've found

But it is pretty sexy looking
In it's custom milled magnesium case
With holes in the front grill
That remind me of mother's face

Oh but that must be it
And it is just as Freud always said
That every single problem
Comes back around to Mom in the end

Though that doesn't explain the worn out dirty rag I keep around

Spark

The dirty SUV driving in front of me
Is kicking up a dirty spray of ice melt water
That my windshield wipers can scarcely keep up with
In their tattered greasy condition

Suddenly an orange spark arced out of the driver's window
Blossoming into a small hot spurt
Marking each time the cigarette butt bounced on the road
While I played my traditional game
Of trying to run over the smoldering thing with one of my tires
Thus drowning out the spark in the darkness
Before it can give life to anything else

This spark of interest
This spark of lies
This spark sputtering out
No matter how hard it tries

If the spark had wishes
It would only use one
That it could start a blaze
To send shadows on the run

Whether real shadows in the dark corners
Or ones that shade the soul
The ones that sow fear and doubt
Making us feel wholly unwhole

Optimistic spark in the dark
I salute your intent
Though my wet rolling tires
Leave you squashed cold and spent

Wrong Dreams

Jesus looked at you with bedroom eyes
Making your skin crawl
As his hand rubbed your inner thighs
Keeping eye contact through it all

Then you awoke to find it was just a dream
And really it was your mother all along
Dragging her nails on your skin softly
In every way possible feeling all wrong

But you jerked yourself from sleep
Only to find yourself kissing your sister
Which was oddly arousing down deep
Though tasting distinctly of dog food

Then the alarm shrieked you awake
Your dog licking your face
He has to go potty pretty bad
And this is certainly no dream imagined place

So come on dog!
Who wants to go outside?
Who wants to go outside?
That's right, YOU do!

Quest for Food

Out through the crack in the baseboard
Then a quick scurry to the free standing cupboard

There is just enough room to walk behind it

Then on to the pantry
Which is a perilous five feet away from the far side of the cupboard
Across open floor
Right next to the cat food and water

Tiny nose precedes long whiskers before little black eyes upon a furry face
With quick darting looks in all possible directions
Four creepy little pink paws gallop across the old discolored hardwood floor

A dive under the pantry door
And we're in

Similies, Metaphors, and Fuck You

"Your honor
Clearly, the sea anemone cannot be faulted for it's built in protection mechanism
And by that same token
My client cannot be found guilty because...."

The judge slams his gavel down several times in annoyance
"Bailiff, escort this son of a bitch from my court room!
I am holding him in contempt of court
And he is to spend two nights in jail"

Judge Calvert looks at the defense attorney intently
"Don't you presume to use a metaphor in MY court room, sir!
Next time, I'll move to have you disbarred"

As this vignette proves
Metaphors are very dangerous things

As a matter of fact
This little exchange is itself a metaphor
But it's so abstract
That I don't know for what

Clearly this can be seen as a simile for life
As just in life
Using the wrong metaphor on the right person
Will get you your ass kicked

Rags In Bags

My once favorite shirt
Is now frayed and rent
The armpits are blown out
The rest thin like a nylon tent

There wouldn't be any water needed
To see my nipples if I wore it
Though that didn't stop me from doing it
It was that stray nail head that tore it

Now it's going into the bag
Along with my worn out socks
Heels gaping open
Into the bag and into the box!

Underwear lurk in there too
Elastic stretched out
Seams in the crotch torn
And some irredeemable stains of poo

Regardless of what they are or where they hailed from
They are in the rag bag now
Destined to end up in the garage rag hamper
Cleaning off dipsticks or mopping up spills
Cast aside from their first glamorous purpose
Recycled and reused
But these rags in bags will end up on the burn pile someday
Bellowing black smoke to mark their passing
Much like me and you

Arctic Pretend

Polar bears in fake red hair
And cormorants in tight corsets

The researchers stopped to stare

The surgeons gasped and dropped their forceps

It was a spectacle of dress up play

With penguins making way

For more secondhand hand-me-downs

To make a real make believe kind of day

Everyone got in on the fun

With great costumes for everyone

Nobody had to be who they really were

It was an epic game of arctic pretend

Apple a Day

Apple apple rolling round
Inside this fishbowl I found
Will you keep the doctor at bay today?
Or will you be eaten with nary a sound?

Dropping the fishbowl with a smash and a crash
It seems I found my answer from that apple
As I sat there picking shards of glass from my skin
The apple simply sat on the ground with a grin

As if to say:
Taunting my magic is folly at best
For it will be me who puts you to the test
Now do you want me to call the doctor for you today?
Or can you hold your pain and tears at bay?

After I picked that last shard of glass from myself
I carefully cleaned myself up
Picked up that apple
And ate it

12th Day of Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas

There were twelve drummers drumming

In a marathon loft apartment session

Leaving the neighbors seriously bumming

In a large circle upon the second floor

Of the large old mansion that was now student housing

Twelve drum kits faced one another

Each with it's own concentrating, slack jawed drummer

Sometimes the beats were in unison

Other times they were counter to one another

At the worst times it seemed that there was no rhythm

Just an acid fueled drumstick salute to the great Earth Mother

The neighbors called the cops

Who came armed and dangerous

But the drummers beat them back

With beat attack most thunderous

Ear drums bleeding

The cops called the National Guard

Who came in their tanks

And parked right in the yard

Bringing the main guns to bear on the house

The drummers responded with drumming war beats

Calling down lightning from high up above

With cymbal crashes and repeats

The tank hulls shattered

The cops ears bleeding

An air strike was called in

Sending the neighbors stampeding

Hearing the jets coming from far far away

The twelve drummers drumming performed a miracle that day

They drummed and worked magic

Both sensible and darkly tragic

Until that old creaking house

Just disappeared from sight

With a sound like the pop of a soap bubble

And all was immediately quiet in the darkening night

Leaving confusion and chaos

As always happens when something is unexplained

With numerous experts on Fox News making up things to say

All to try to describe this apparent miracle

On this Twelfth Christmas Day.

11th Day of Christmas

The eleventh day of Christmas

Peed all over the seat

Though I'd asked it many times

To try to be neat

Aim at the floating Cheerios, I'd say

It's fun, it's a sport!

But dried urine everywhere

Was all I'd have to report

Not even eleven pipers piping

Could add rhythm to his stream

Apparently just causing him to aim wildly

Doing nothing for the neatness of the team

Perhaps if I could install some sort of penis GPS

To guide the stream to the proper place

Yes on this eleventh day of Christmas

I only wish my son to be a bathroom ace

10th Day of Christmas

The tenth day of Christmas

Stole all the matching socks

So each the ten lords a leaping

Had one bare foot a protruding from their frocks

To put it into Star Trek terms

The Ferenghi sock faeries fell in love with their formula:

Socks + ?? = PROFIT

And so far it hasn't worked out

Breaking all kinds of rules of acquisition

Leaving most the 'verse in a perverse single sock condition

One socked lords a leaping

Are truly just the tip of the iceberg

With their hairy lord toes in the air

Leaping for the tenth day of Christmas

Like they just don't care

9th Day of Christmas

Nine ladies dancing dominated my field of view
From halfway up the wall of the performance cylinder
I was roughly twenty feet from the stage floor
In a box seat balcony carved out of Lunar rock
Which left me right about at the peak of the dancer's leaps and pirouettes

The Luna City Performance Arts Council had put on a fine show so far
In their annual interpretation of the Twelve Days Of Christmas
By artistically presenting each of the day's gifts from the song

Today's was sort of the least inspired piece though
With it's literal presentation of Nine Ladies Dancing

Their nudity an unexceptional addition to the traditional image
With it being so common in the public areas of the city tubes

With a final glance at one of the performers
As she arced beautifully near me in the 1/6th gravity
Her large breasts floating almost weightlessly on her chest
Before lightly returning to the stage floor
I got up and exited into the corridor that encircled the area behind the balconies
And found a stairway to the lower level

I've often found that more enjoyment can be found from the cheap seats
Where people are less jaded in their perceptions

And just in saying that
I realize that I'm part of the problem

I came out of the lower archway into the number eight quadrant of the floor seating
And found an empty seat a few rows back from the stage
Where I quietly sat down

It was then that I saw one of the most beautiful sights of my life

Looking up at the soaring nine ladies dancing
The transparent ceiling of the cylinder was their backdrop
With stars winking in the blackness
And a bit of the Earth looking down from the edge of the vista

I was transfixed as the dancers transitioned from the stage to the air
Seemingly directly over my head
Dancing amongst the stars and planets
The nine ethereal ladies
On this ninth day of Christmas

8th Day of Christmas

Upon this eighth day of Christmas

I celebrate the dawn of a new year

From high atop the midship crows nest

Of the ship John Poole out of Glasgow

Mid Atlantic waves tossing us from peak to trough

Fully redefining what I had considered as being 'tough enough'

Tough enough for this duty

Tough enough for truly

To be swayed about in this exaggerated way

High up in this perch

Watching for 'bergs

Maybe for whales

Or flotsam and debris

Big enough to poke holes in this barge

Though truth be told 

I may have drawn this mostly unnecessary duty

Because as assholes go

The Captain was rather large

That and my having been intimate with his favorite scullery girl

Despite the miserable sway

And my thinking I didn't deserve to be treated this way

I sing a song of the eighth day of Christmas

With some sweet maids a milking

In the beams of the sun creeping my way

Orange in the morning on this New Years Day