
You say
I am a mole
when I write
burrowing
down
to my tunnel
with the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign
on the door;
but I say
I know
no other way
that when I’m done
I emerge
into the light
tiny eyes
blinking
- pic courtesy of Wikimedia
You say
I am a mole
when I write
burrowing
down
to my tunnel
with the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign
on the door;
but I say
I know
no other way
that when I’m done
I emerge
into the light
tiny eyes
blinking
Have you ever noticed how placid an ad becomes
when you put a cow in it?
Farmers too when they milk?
All my good ideas came to me while I was milking a cow,
the American painter Grant Wood
declared.
Have you ever noticed how much more pleasant
‘The Farmer Wants a Wife’ is
compared to the bitchy, sniping
‘Married At First Sight’?
We should all pat a cow in the morning, hug a tree
if we are to start the day right.
Riot-prone areas, prisons too should be equipped with cows
their melodious moos
soothing the seething masses.
Bovine Buddhas
emblems of placidity
a state we aspire to in these troubled times.
You can’t swat it.
Spray it.
Shut it out.
Tell it to sit. Stay.
It’s in yr brain.
Waiting. Watching
Friends, fellow writers
That first flicker of success
The green frog of envy.
We sit on the deck, sipping our gin and tonics, watching the sun go down over the golf course when we spot a police vehicle drive onto the fairway and towards the rough where the car stops and an officer gets out. Three shots ring out.
Over dinner the head waiter fills us in. A king ‘roo had been hit by an SUV and wandered onto the course badly wounded, terrifying golfers whereby the manager phoned the RSPCA who suggested they phone the police. The ‘roo had been put down.
We drink our wine subdued as the dark creeps in.
It wasn’t Miro’s colourful coq
Nor Chaucer’s Chanticleer
Nor the one that crowed three times when Peter
Denied Jesus.
It was just a garden variety rooster
That waddled onto the page
When my back was turned
& scrabbled between the lines
Before I sent him on his way
feathers all ruffled
Into a sunset red
as a coxcomb.
You open your mouth. A pink hippo comes out. You scratch your ear, a purple gorilla. You blow your nose, a polka dot egret. You pass wind, an emerald marmoset. You wonder what will come next. You go to the toilet. You piss piranhas. Defecate falcons. Can I have some more you ask the anaesthetist but the anaesthetist has gone, the effects wearing off just as an oleaginous eel slithers from the long wound in your leg from which the surgeon removed veins for your blocked arteries.
Shelby was disgusted.
She would sleep that night in the refrigerator.
She admired its stern solidity.
At least the mice couldn’t get to her.
And if she felt like a midnight snack, she wouldn’t have far to go.
She hopped in.
It wasn’t long before her teeth began chattering. That would keep her awake. Give her away if he was still in the house.
So she bit down on a leg of lamb.
That seemed to work.
She drifted off dreaming of sheep in thick woolen jumpers serially hurdling fences.
Will you turn off the f#@#ing faucet? Holly hollers. A hippo could drown in here.
But you’re not a real hippo.
A girl can dream, can’t she?
But you’re made of stone!
That’s a bit rich, isn’t it? Coming from a puppet made of wood who thinks its a boy!!