Horrors Beyond Naming, and the Forbidden Door Thrown Wide

The learned and august Professor Linwood Dinwiddie-MacCuthbert III
showed his horrible,
unspeakable,
unnatural handiwork
to me.

The first one, released,
was some sort of semi-human beast;
when the cage door opened, it scrabbled to my feet--
smiling horribly,
quivering disturbingly,
it recited these words:

"My penis
dwarfs all creation!
Every person, idea, and nation!
Such a splendid sword is mine,
that--"

Stop this, I cried.
You're a monster, MacCuthbert, I accused,
to compel another human being
for your purposes used
so cruelly
and awfully abused.
Um....are ALL of his poems like this?
I inquired, about the loathsome creature in our midst.

Yes! Each and every one! cried Linwood Dinwiddie MacCuthbert III.
All sixteen thousand two hundred and three
which I have so far heard
contain some variation
of the P word.

I was revived with salts.

Next, the fiend showed me a woman so altered,
she could write of nothing but bunnies and flowers.
I'm shocked at you, Linwood,
to think that you ever could
create such wretches here in your study
spouting preposterous poetry so cruddy
that I scarce can believe
such things exist at all.

He had saved the most terrifying abomination for last.
MacCuthbert moved to a door and threw aside the latch,
revealing a wraith dressed in bustle and corset
claiming to have arrived on the most recent train from Dorset!
It speaks! I gasped.
It seems deranged!
Has it got a soul? A brain?
I hardly dared ask...a name???

Linwood Dinwiddie MacCuthbert III ceased at that hour
to be my old friend at all, but a lion to devour
all that is good
and right,
and orderly in the world.
Its name is "Fireblossom" he drooled.
MacCuthbert the blasphemer!
The madman!
The unhinged, unreasoning ghoul!

Leave her to me, I said sternly,
and he relinquished the hellish girl to my keeping
at Miss Pennyfarthing-Sevier's
Correctional
Finishing School.

We have become uncommonly close.
_______ 


for Kerry's spifftastic steampunk challenge at Real Toads
 

National Summary Execution Month

Bernard begins to find NaSumExMo burdensome.
Oh, it was fun at first--
the camaraderie, 
the challenge,
the attention!
from reporters and police.

But now,
NaSumExMo seems like a mistake.

His girlfriend, Ashley, does not understand.
"I was talking," she complains.
"I was trying to tell you about something,
and you just keep fucking with that guillotine
and those god damn melons!"

She leaves him.
Her fragrance fades, replaced by the smell of gun oil.

Bernard finds that he has a blemish
on his cheek.
He frowns at it in the mirror, while shaving,
and would turn it if he had not made
this stupid commitment.

"Show me the thing that cannot become a commonplace,"
whines Bernard.
There are days when there really is no deserving miscreant,
and he goes about his business out of duty
rather than joy.

Blam!
So what?
Why did he think this would be worthwhile,
or fun?

"Kill me," he begs another participant.
Ennui has left him unhinged.

Ashley finds him, rocking like a defective in an alley,
twirling his hair,
mumbling.

"Come on, Bernie," she coaxes, softly.
She leads him home,
to the old couch with the floral sheet spread over it,
and the cats.
She heats some chicken noodle for him,
as if he were seven years old and 
home with a cold.

Later, in bed,
She kisses his chapped, razor-nicked face,
and asks,
"Sooo...what are we going to say, if they ask you again,
next month?"

"No..." he replies, eventually, in a vacant monotone.
She kisses him again,
happy to take him back.

"That's right, baby."
And it is.

_______

Shay's Rebellion

Plenty people
Tried to bang me down in a box
At the bottom of the sea
With a thousand million locks...

Mama was their Queen.
She tell me do right,
And toe the line,
Or she smash me to smithereens.

Sorry, Mama,
I'm a flock that scatters and spins;
Turns once, turns twice,
Then comes together again.

I always been this way.
Don't cotton much
To rules and such.
That's all I got to say.
_____

Thanks to Cloudia, of Comfort Spiral blog, who sent the kitty pic, and wished me a happy anniversary of Shays Rebellion!

Top photograph: Charlotte Gainsbourg
 

The Calm Bird/ Haiku Poetry For A Wednesday Evening

consider the calm bird

assuming a steady pose

flap your wings, stupid

always seek stillness

goldfish swim, then are at rest

koi pond is frozen

nature provides much

receive nourishment from earth

use three second rule

angry mount fuji

flows faster than man can run

where are the fucking keys?

to coax bonsai tree

trim wisely and use soft ties

hammer not so good

sun rises then sets

industrious zen master

with your wife long time

sick like hell of rice

same thing morning noon and night

fuck you, uncle ben

______