Veteran Mentor

Principal Diggin's chubby jowls jiggled as he talked

"Being middle schoolers now is a big responsibility
We consider you to be our veterans
And now that you are in sixth grade I expect more of you
One of your new jobs will be to mentor the elementary kids
So I expect you to take them under your wings and help out"

With that short speech in mind
Is how I found myself on the school bus
In the second to last row
With a fourth and a fifth grader
Discussing swear words

I was trying to correct their misconceptions

"No no no, hell really isn't a swear word
It doesn't matter what your parents say
I'm here to tell you"

I tried to look all knowing and veteran-y

"What you've basically got
Is a swear triangle
On the corners of your swear triangle
You'll find the base words that you work with:
Shit, Ass, and Fuck
You go ahead and build off of those for most anything
Adding words or phrases in front of or behind them
Understand?"

The two younger kids looked at me with wide eyes
Impressed, no doubt, by the knowledge bomb I had just dropped

So I sat back and bounced along with the bus
Watching and listening as my two students tried out words
I smiled and nodded at their phrasing
Not really shocked by any of it
Knowing they'd get the hang of it

Just another day in the life
For a veteran like me

Welcome to the Fourth Grade Level

I've read your assessment
It doesn't jibe with my perceptions
You say my words are at a fourth grade level
Well I've got news for you
That's the demographic I write for
And even that
My friend
Is past your limits
I know what they are
I was eavesdropping the last time your mistress made you her bitch
So don't tell me I don't know what they are
I even know your safeword

It's Pineapple Jubilee

Guess what?
That's two words
So right there you fail right out of the gate
If I was her
I wouldn't respect that shit
I'd keep on flogging until I saw bone
Your skin hung in tatters
Over top of your neo kinky form
Padded handcuffs tight from supporting your pussy ass weight
I'd pop some popcorn for that show
I'd risk my curfew and stay out way super late

Here's a fucking funnel
I'll jamb it into your left ear
Pouring my words into you like hot oil
Filling up every crevice until you are full
Of the words that are me
The thoughts that come out of my dick like piss
Raining down on you like a golden shower of shit
Fourth grade level words for your padded reality
Wrapping you up in a canvas and leather jacket of my own design
Dropping you into a tank of your own shortcomings
Sitting back to see if you can perform the escape
Inverted and bound in my reality on this page

That's how Houdini died I heard
Drowned in my words

That's how epic this shit is

Here I'll rope some Doctor Suess for you
I'll rhyme it like a hammer
Stand the fuck back
And turn on the radar jammer
As I fly by that state trooper
That's hiding in the weeds
His gun on automatic
As he jerks out to some mobile porn
Xhamster on the public dole
Doing it stranger style with his left
Because his right is feeling worn

Black belted Brown Betty bugles
Battled it out in the mucus
Singing fancy fuego fun fugue feugels
Crunched by cocky clown clad clappers
Enamel angels after all the esther adders
Till time told them to tower in terror
And slide slippery slopes slithering
Till digested diggery dogging doo
They ran their course to be ejected as my poo

Boom

Warring Pot Stock

The beans didn't like the corn
The sauce wasn't in love with the meat
That's all I can think of
If true
It ties it up quite neat

The tensions between them all
Must have finally come to a head
Exploding my silver crock pot
Putting my meal on the ceiling
When it should be on my plate instead

The beans had history with the corn
Two generations back
There was an arranged marriage that failed
And the two clans had been duking it out ever since
"Why hadn't I seen it clearly before??" I loudly wailed

And the meat
Don't get me started
Has been taking advantage of the sauce
Since about the time that time had started
And the sauce was done with it
The commotion that ensued was so frightening that I sharted

That must be how it went
The ingredients had problems with one another
Totally outside my control
For it just couldn't have been me
I just can't see that I had any role

This chef is throwing in his hat
And making a TV dinner
Far from admitting fault for all this mess
I'm declaring myself the winner

I'll let the maid clean it up
Right after I let her eat cake

Darkness Dealt

When dealing with the blackness
It is always best done
With a thimbleful of rum
A pinch of salt thrown over the shoulder
A stitch in time to go with the ongoing knitting
Which is being minded as your own
As it should be
As it was advised
For minding other's clicky clacky knitty knacky
Is deemed by the elders to be most unwise

Like sticking your nose where it does not belong
Which is hard if one is Pinocchio
And lies are all that come
The nose grows and pokes and goes
To places that it has nary been
If indeed those nostrils them had eyes
And those boogers could have seen

But then again
It was in fact made of wood
Which had a grain that was planed
As all good carpentry should
This Geppetto surely did know
As he fashioned his disturbing puppet
With pedophile fingers
No longer allowed around real children to go

In that situation
A handmade Real Doll just had to do
With strings to pull
So that it felt like a stranger was doing the work

And that's how Geppetto dealt with his darkness
His little bit of rum
Some pinches of salt
The minding of his own knitting
Which was more than a dash of carpentry

To that we add knives and paints
Framed pictures of saints
A tiny cricket dressed up in creepy clothes
A high seas adventure
Some kinky sea creature ingestion
And there you have it
A lovely bedtime story without question
Guaranteed to create nightmares
In any given girl or boy
Catching their sensibilities unawares
As the nanny giggles into her sherry
Turns off all the lights despite the protests

"Shut up my pretties, maybe you'll be comforted by a fairy"

Followed by victorian boot clomps down the hall
To her own room
Where every night she deals with her own doom
Her very own brand of darkness
Her very own demons
To which she must confess

Birthday Girl

Timeless party girl
Carved out of a gourd
Triangles for eyes and nose
Only two teeth that show
A fresh candle nestled down inside
Where the brain should be
Keeping the light alive
Sheltered from the winds of fall
That swirl the crunchy leaves

Happy Birthday birthday girl
Keep on lighting the way

Vote Box

My vote must be made of meat
From the looks of the collection box
The way it's peering at me eagerly
Pointed teeth glinting in the government issue lights
Winking at me past the "Vote Here" placard
Like it's my friend
Like it's perfectly safe

But it can't fool me
I was here when it took the arm off that old lady
Just scant minutes ago
She was led one armed and screaming
"At least my Senator Mussinfuck will win!!"
Then muttering to herself
"Worth it, it was worth it..."
Flat on her back on the gurney
Blood staining the thin sheet over her
Getting shoved into the back of the bright flashing meatwagon

Now it was my turn
My votes filled in carefully
Just like taking a state mandated standard test
Each bubble filled in completely
With my number two pencil
A glance at the clock
Because I forgot where I was
And thought that Mr. Smith was going to tell me
"Time's up! Pencils down!"
Without any warning

This time
I'm going to outsmart that voting box
On the downleg to my walker I've go my special tool
Three feet long
With rubber tipped gripping fingers on the end
I use it to grab things up high
Or just nearby when I'm too lazy to get up

Placing the ballot firmly in it's rubber fingers
I reached out with the aluminum limb
Slipping my precious paper into the gaping maw
Which clamped down without warning upon the stick

And it was a struggle
I'm pretty sure I chipped the cursed box's teeth
But my ballot was consumed
To be passed and counted at a later time
My mangled reaching stick once again strapped to my walker

Step - shuffle - shuffle - step
I make my way back out to my car
Voting is a privilege
Made even more fun by having to outsmart the savage vote box

The Vote-O-Matic 10000
A pox be upon it's name

Election Day Contest

Always so predictable I lamented
For on this Election Day
I saw the same old show
The same old way
No unique votes to throw

The Democratic incumbent
A handsome enough steed
Clip clopped in all his donkey glory
Onto the gridiron today

To face off against the challenger
That classic dusty old elephant
Strong in so many ways
Yet in others so not

Oh there are other parties involved too
Mainly supporting the action though
The Green Party graciously laid down
And provided the lovely grass playing field

The Libertarians play as coaches
Yelling encouragement to the main players
Whispering into mics and listening on headsets
Lest any vital plays someone could steal

The Justice party suited up
In their zebra striped pajamas
And are refereeing this contest
With rulebooks in the hand of all line judges

On the opening play
The Democrat opened his mouth impossibly wide
Vomiting a rainbow fifty yards long and filling the field side to side
But the elephant knew it was coming
As that was last season's play
He tempered the colors with Republican conscience
Turning it all into various shades of gray

The contest went on like that
Roaring up and down the field
Seemingly no end in sight
As neither side would yield

But eventually the crowd won out
Made up of you and I
We stormed the field in confused rage
Tearing up the turf
Setting fire to the stage

Until the dust finally settled
Sometime later in the day
What we had left as the apparent winner
Was neither elephant or donkey
It looked like something a mad scientist would make
Out of bits of each
Some elephant legs upon a donkey body
A strange looking head that actually had a beak

Nobody knew where the beak had come from
But there wasn't any going back now
We just declared this strange hybrid creature the victor
Gave him his spoils and went out to Denny's for dinner.