Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

The Soul Dentist

The soul dentist
Will not insult you with claims of painlessness.
He'll give you a stick to bite on.
He is a Big Picture kind of guy.

The soul dentist
Keeps his instruments clean,
Eats frozen pot pies for dinner,
And has the ear of God.


The sad toy cat
Has a stitched inverted "Y" forming mouth and nose.
She not only does not smile--
She cannot.


What is the point in telling her jokes,
Or inviting her for dinner?
What future can there be in kissing her?
Of what use to her is your unthinking gift of wine?

The soul dentist thinks what he thinks, but says nothing
Upon ferreting out the decay in your aura,
Your receding chi,
And the rot at the root of your glib, infected life.


He is thinking of the sad toy cat,
The one he cannot examine.
She is his silent Mona Lisa--
Filled, not with the light of divine spark, like all the rest,
But with cotton batting,
Mystery,
And her unreachable, machine-sewn melancholy.


________

13 comments:

  1. I've read this through three times--better, more cutting, cleaner and more precise in the dentistry, each time. What is the use of kissing her? Perhaps the soul dentist can whisper into the ear of god, and find the way for her to become a Real Cat, like Pinocchio made it. Fine poem, in every way, Shay.

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  2. hedge stole my idea...if he listens with that ear i am sure she will speak through the stitches...lovely....

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  3. your mind is a garden run riot!



    Aloha from Honolulu,


    Comfort Spiral

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    <°)}}><

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  4. In my mind I'm seeing James Brown belting out his #1 hit, "Soul Dentist". Man, that cat sure can swing!

    "I'm a soul....*uh*...Dentist! *step back!*
    I'm a soul....*ugh*...Dentist! *watch me now!*"

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  5. This makes a trip to the dentist even more fun than nitrous.

    "...the rot at the root...machine-sewn melancholy." Brilliant and beautiful!

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  6. "And her unreachable, machine-sewn melancholy."

    :-)))) I love it!

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  7. those lines:
    the rot at the root of your glib, infected life.

    are a bunch of selected truths as painful as it is to recognise... we insist on the things we cannot have or give back life to- we humans are so!

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  8. 'silent Mona Lisa' ... you do have an amazing way with word imagery

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  9. very interesting, i am always impressed by your work!

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  10. I love the things you add to your poems - like that guy eating frozen chicken pot pies. :)

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  11. Oh my goodness, this is brilliance at its brightest and most imaginative. Wow, Shay! A soul dentist - the flaw in your aura, the rot at the root of your glib, infected life. PULL-LEEZ!!!!!!! You are killing me!!!!!! I am rending my garments. I have never had a thought that original in my ENTIRE LIFE. Argh. I so love the way you write!!!!!!

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  12. This has to go into my file of favorites. Brilliant, Shay.

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