Uncircle Me

Uncircle me
Release the bonds that tether
Unbuckle those straps of leather
Point me to the door
Set me free

Uncircle those wagons Hoss
It does no good to hide
All the women and children in the middle
For the enemy's already inside

Uncircle the wrong answer
If you can and you have an eraser
Else it's all scribbles and crossouts for you
On this day of the big test

Uncircle the Oroboros
Yank that snake's tail from it's mouth
It's not a circle without end you know
It just his sanity that's gone south

Uncircle the wedding band
Let's make this thing open ended
Until death do us part you say?
How about just until we lose interest

Oh my
I fear I've offended!

Rankin Bass Holiday Mishmash

My world is a stop motion mashup
A Rankin-Bass brainstorming session
Where clay is the outer shell
Boys have all the yucky boy stuff inside
Whereas the girls are filled with all things nice

I'm a New Year's Baby
Sucking my thumb
Half hidden in a top hat
Plotting the years events
On the office suite hidden inside
A touch screen interface
Hanging inside the hat
A useful feature for the twenty first century
A modern New Years Cowboy

Then on to Valentine's day
With Irontail and Mister Snow
Half on my mind
Singing "Be Mine Today"
With a bass note pitch
And a mellow red glow
Popping candy cinnamon hearts
Into my claymation mouth
I try to chew them up
But just smash my clay teeth flat
And get shot by Cupid
Right in the clay back

Oh right now
It's a dark green bowler perched on my head
A light green band around it
A shamrock front and center
Cocked jauntily for St Patrick's Day
This one's a little different
I'm a leprechaun
With an impossibly large stick
Chasing snakes from Ireland
With a small cauldron of gold
Clinking on my back
And there's a rainbow following me
I just can't get away
I swing at it with my stick
In a jerky stop motion way
My expression changing inexplicably as I move
Stray fingers inadvertently changing my mood
As the animation goes on

Now I'm a rabbit
Filling in for Peter Cottontail
Bouncing about
Balancing my basket in one paw
Hiding eggs and gifts
Without opposable thumbs
Which is easier said than done
And probably what much of the magic is used for

Morphing into Uncle Sam
I find I'm in a special that was never made
It never got past the censors
Though it was all stock in trade
Wearing a red white and blue flag suit
I march around the world
Grinding cultures under my patriotic boot
Blowing perfect round clay holes
In all my clay enemies
A King, a Kaiser, a Fuehrer
And an animated mustache
Hanging on a bar and sickle

Summer months
Hanging with Mister Sun
Getting a little melty
Watching my clay colors run

Then into Thanksgiving
And I'm a turkey
Throwing itself upon a spit
Surely a realistic claymation documentary
Eager to be eaten
I lost my leg in Nom
Eerily still away
Even as I lay on the model table
Fluttering my red flaps
Saying, "Eat me while I'm still warm!"

Christmas time
Without a Santa
As it is every year
I'm a nondescript reindeer
Standing off to the side
In the snow
Watching Rudolph do his yearly story
Picked over me in the end
Because he's deformed
And wrote to Make a Wish
"All I want to do is lead Santa's sleigh"
And the clay reindeer bitch of it is
He does it every reindeer year

Then all the clay is recycled
Donated to the local kindergarten
To be rolled around
Until I'm just a tie dyed mound
Of living thinking clay

I wonder what they'll make of me today?

Waiting on the Aluminum Bitch

Tower personnel barked out orders
Requested status updates
Tracked tiny blips on their screens
Scanned the dark skies for lights
Anything out of place
Anything that wasn't where they wanted it
On the ground
Or hanging in space

Ground crews humped packages
Transported passengers
Delivered food
Marshaled aircraft and equipment into position
A veritable anthill of activity
Moving on marked paths
As distinct as real ants pheromone trails
Marked with lines, symbols, lights

People rushing around
Concentrating on their jobs
A hive of activity

And then there is me
Sitting in the ramp Jeep
My toolbox at my side
Cigarette in my lips
Eyes half lidded from lack of sleep
Knowing that I look like shit
And not caring overmuch

Glancing at my watch

You are fifteen minutes overdue
Due in at 1750 GMT
I got the radio call from Maintenance Control
Saying you had run into headwinds
So I'm not worried

I take a drag on the cigarette
Letting the ash tail dangle
And close my eyes
Oblivious to the hectic activity outside the cab of the Jeep

You land
Your silvery flanks wet with condensed crystallization
Icy fingers trace where your fuel still sits inside your wings
Like a frosty mug of beer at the bar
As I walk around you
I reach up my fingers
Tickling your underside
Dragging my nails across your lower wing skin
Piling up ice frost under my fingernails
Freezing my fingertips
As I scan your frame
For anything out of place

My hands reach out and grasp parts of you
Wiggling here
Tugging there
Looking for looseness that should not be
A rattle
A chafe
But you are perfect
As perfect as I'd wish you to be

No flat spots on your tires
Lights shining as they should
Systems checking A-OK
Fluids filled to the brim
You quiver with power
Ready for what's in store

Loaders slide pallets inside of you
Locking them in with mechanical sounds
Flight crew changing out
You'll be in new fresh hands

All too soon it's time to go
And you are pushed back by airport personnel
Engines flaring to life
Briefly bumping up in power
Just to get you rolling
You taxi out of sight
Around the far corner
Into the dark night

One of those roaring takeoffs in the next few minutes
That will be you
Flying on until you come back again
To be caught
To be touched
To be turned
Only to burn
Away once again

The radio crackles next to me on the seat of the Jeep
I snap my eyes open
My cigarette nothing by ashes now
And cold
Falling from my lips to my lap with a curse

You're on final approach
I hop out to welcome you
You sexy aluminum bitch

Seal Play

In and out
Endlessly figure eighting
Around and through bone white supports
Nipping at red dangling flesh
Chasing one another
Barking in playfulness

Hide and seek
Hiding behind the heart
Or maybe the liver
Giggling behind a flipper
Covered in melting blubber

Sliding down the spine
Which makes a xylophone noise
As seal skinned bottom
Bounces down the chines

It's a Warner Brothers cartoon
It all started at noon
On the Saturday
Before last

Now half eaten and buried in the sand
Mostly bones, entrails and skin flaps
Are all that still stand
As monument to this great whale beast
Stranded upon the land

A seal herd has set up camp
Stamping their flippers in the sand
Barking their approval
At this unexpected playplace
A seal play palace
Playing as hard as they can

One sliding on slippery insides
Down the center of the carcass
A macabre slip and slide of glee

Another hanging from rib cage
Monkey bars for flippered feet
Hanging inches above the ground
Defying perceived seal-ness
Splashing about in this here whale mess

Then it was gone
On the second monday after the first
The dawn after a wailing storm

The seals came down from their sleeping place
Above the beach in the grass
To find their playground deserted
No equipment
Just a flat damp expanse

Without a hesitation
Without a barked quibble
They moved as one group
To the surf and beyond
Chasing the rumor
Of a washed up school of blue fin
Just like a pack of barking sea dogs
Hot on the scent of something new and stinky to roll in

Mathematician Seeks Your Satisfaction

Numbers and sequences
Always running through
Equations full of meaning
If x = y then it's true

Puttering in the basement
In a cafe drinking coffee
Running numbers in my head
Even when I'm with you

When I look at you
I feel love
That much = true
But it's a sort of different view

You are a riddle to be solved
Much like E=MC squared
When we make love
It's not just your body I want bared

I want to solve for your root
I want to propose a theorem
So I can work on you
For extended periods of time

At the whiteboard of your passion
Numbers and symbols a whirling dervish
As things build to a climax
And the solution becomes clearer

I reach that 'aha!' moment
And I look down at you
Some disappointment on your face
It appears I found the sum too quickly

Much to your happiness
I find other things upon you unresolved
So I go to work on them in different ways
Until all these smaller problems
Culminate in one vociferous "YES"

Uttered from your lips
As mine are busy
Reciting equations of love out loud
Pressed into your nether
Kissing you softly as a feather

Only climaxing
At a passing grade

Motive

You've got your reasons
I'm sure you do
Or at least
That's what you tell yourself
That''s what I'd do

Convince yourself
And maybe others will believe
Stare into your navel
Understand yourself
Else you never will achieve

Toilets flush backwards
South of the equator
I believe that
As much as believe in you

Oh, you're physical enough
That much is true
The things you do
Those can be proven too

It's just your methods are distasteful
You suspected motives disgraceful
The results you achieve
Are therefore moot

By killing a million
To protect a billion
You only assure your fame
As one of the mass murderers of the game

Perhaps the greater good is preserved
Though your logic is perceived as absurd
I'll back your play
To a point

That point is reached
When I see your actual endgame
Which thusfar you've kept hidden from view
I may or may not approve all the same

So when I see
And you prove to me
Beyond a shadow of a doubt
You upon the end of my knife
Is all that there will be

Night and Day Terrors

There's evil all around me

At night it takes a few different forms
Primarily
For me
It lives under the bed
In unseen evilness
Reaching out with taloned appendage
To grasp at me at I get into
Or out of
The kingdom of bed

Sometimes it lives inside the closet
But only when the door is partially open
Just cracking the seal upon the terror
Seeping out of the darkened space
At just the right terrifying pace
To blanken my mind with fear

At all times
The form that any window takes after the sun goes down
The blackened eye
That only hours ago was a window upon the world
For me to see and be gladdened by the outside
Is now peering at me with ill intent
Watching my every move
Judging my every sigh

I resolve these issues not with a regular prescription
At least not one that I can get at the store
But simple instructions for living

A simple leap into
Or out of
The bed will control those feelings of being grabbed at

Closing the closet door
Will keep whatever is plotting my demise
Safely shut away and out of mind

Pulling those curtains closed
Will veil the horrible eye
And keep my movements hidden from it's view

During the day though
It got more complicated
For whatever I could see
Would be kept at bay
As long as I kept my blinks short
My eye rubbing to a minimum

Thus restricting the Weeping Angels movement
Or anything else that was plucking at my sanity
Keeping it in view
In this odd world of askew

For awhile I didn't know what to do
About things that were sneaking up on me
I knew they were there
My skin grew goosebump and prickles
My hackles rose up with frightful hair

I'd always spin around just in time
Giving my war face
Shouting a battlecry
Watching the enemy scatter in fear

But that gets old

I came upon a solution
To the sneaking up evil spirits
A backpiece done by a shaman
Riven upon my flesh
A prayer and ward of protection
Done in ink as a protective sketch

Whether under clothes
Or on full display
The graven image
Keeps evil at bay

Though mostly only from behind
So I'm thinking of getting more
So as to from all sides remind
The evil that stalks me day by day

That I know that it is there
I'm alert and always aware
So sayeth the roaring protective demon
In full dimensional color
Upon my back
Peering out of the fleshy gloom

Once my full body design is done
I'll be safe in the sun
On overcast days
And even into the night
One look at my body
And evil will run
As the image of me
Will inspire terror and fright

No more shutting closet doors
Pulling curtains tight
Leaping into bed
Cowering into the night
All will be as day
My fright naught but a vanished blight