For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.
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Image by Francesco De Tommaso on Unsplash, used with permission
Evolutional Malfunction
In the shadows of the tundra, the lion hunts tonight.
What unsuspecting detour will still a gazelle’s flight?
Nightfall cancels the good fortune of the graceful beast.
The ballet of his progress has mercilessly ceased.
So nature feasts on nature in our world’s cruel plan—
animal on animal and man on weaker man.
Much as we hope that we’ve evolved, we cycle back again,
supplementing power by feeding on the pain
of people that we use as stepping stones to power.
What man can stand above unless other humans cower?
The nature of wild animals is that they give short shrift.
The kill is sane and merciful. The slaughter sure and swift.
Mankind is the species where cruelty was born.
Their hunts don’t end in darkness, but leak over to the morn.
Men amassing billions while other billions starve—
how big is the kingdom that they hope to carve?
A lion with its appetite sated ends the slaughter.
Not so the questing magnate or his greedy daughter.
Send back the starving children, parentless and weak.
They will not have the mercy or safety that they seek.
Recycle them to other lions on the hunt.
In darkness or in light of day, their stalkers never punt.
Oh how the jaded mighty exercise their powers
by stacking bodies of the powerless to build their lofty towers.
Prompt words today are shadows, detour, fortune, lion and nightfall.
Gremlins: A Teenage Mythology
A sneeze is how a poltergeist gets outside of you.
At night a different stinky elf sleeps inside each shoe.
Every creaking rafter supports its resident ghost,
and it’s little gremlins who make you burn the toast.
Each night those tricky fairies put snarls in your hair,
while pixies in your sock drawer unsort every pair.
Midnight curtain billows are caused by banshee whistles.
Vampires use your toothbrush and put cooties in its bristles.
Truths all come in singles. It’s lies that come in pairs.
That’s a zombie, not a teenager, sneaking up the stairs.
This poem is posted for: The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest
For Cee’s FOTD
Pain and Pleasure
Be thankful for your bugaboos, though they invade your head
while walking down a lonely street or lying in your bed.
I know they make you nervous, especially at night.
They ramify your countless fears. They niggle, scratch and bite.
Fear is the voice of instinct. It says that something’s wrong.
It sets action in motion when pain sounds the warning gong.
Fear and pain must guide the way. Without them you are guileless.
How would we know something was wrong if gall bladders were bileless?
Nature’s warning signals, be they physical or mental
agitate those normal states more pleasurably gentle.
They are our bodyguards and they make us more secure,
warning of us problems for which we need a cure.
They tell of hidden dangers. Make us more aware.
It’s true both pain and pleasure are part of nature’s care.
Prompts for today are thankful, bugaboo, nervous, night and ramify.
Canned Cantos
Behold the simple can of soup.
Outside it’s hard. Inside it’s goop.
Cream of mushroom, turkey noodle—
kids adore the whole kaboodle.
Crass men raid the chicken coop
to gather poultry for our soup.
They chop up onions, slice potatoes,
murder mushrooms, slay tomatoes.
Must Warhol then immortalize
this canned concoction I despise?
The world agreed. He must. He should.
They called his canned art very good.
Yet this icon that he chose
to paint and to overexpose,
I could easily view myself
lined up on my kitchen shelf.
Why pay a thousand bucks or more
for something that each day I pour
into a pan and then ingest?
I think, friends, that it was a test
to see how gullible we are.
As we made this elf a star,
fanned his fame, increased his rank,
he laughed his way right to the bank.
Not Cricket
Almost anything the least notable that happens to me anymore, Forgottenman insists I must make into a blog post. I object. He prods. I comply. Tonight it was simply a VERY LOUD cricket whose noise was ricocheting off the concrete walls and dome of my living/dining room and practically causing the mainly glass walls to vibrate. After about 20 minutes, I developed a splitting headache and went in search of it, knowing that in these rooms and the adjoining kitchen there is so much stuff that I’d never find it. But, to my surprise, I tracked it down. Here is the Skype conversation that ensued:
Green Door
Not a wall. A door at most.
Barely more than lath and post.
Peep hole worn by questing fingers––
a lost soul whose presence lingers.
What has this fortress kept inside?
What prisoner trapped? What captive died?
We have no idea––none at all
of what was kept behind this wall.
As paint peels off and dust invades,
the story ages, wanes and fades.
The story too grim to express?
They leave it up to us to guess.
For Friday Fictioneer45: 77 words
