Movement In Four Parts

 

Shot-Through-The-Guts had been shot through the guts.

"Tsk tsk," said Portly Pantaloons, packing his pipe. 

"Serves him right!" growled Razormouth, having done it. 

"Might...die..." gasped Shot-Through-The-Guts.

"Tsk tsk," scolded Portly Pantaloons, with his habitual air of mild disapproval.

"He woulda stole my teeth with a monkey wrench!" complained Razormouth, who hated the dentist's smock that Shot-Through-The-Guts liked to wear. 

"It's worn ironically," groaned Shot-Through-The Guts, as a crimson stain spread across his dentist's smock.

"I think it's vulgar!" cried Mrs. Portly Pantaloons indignantly.

Razormouth said nothing, but clicked his teeth together menacingly.

"Where will you go," inquired Portly Pantaloons, gesturing with his pipe, "if you, eh, pass on, as it were?"

"Straight to hell!" interjected Razormouth, dancing from foot to foot.

At that moment, a host of beautiful angels wearing pure white dentist's smocks floated down and tenderly collected Shot-Through-The-Guts, then returned to the clouds.

"Not from this neighborhood I daresay," complained Portly Pantaloons, stamping his cane importantly. "Probably came in on the bus line."

"Dentist's smocks!" bellowed Razormouth, his little eyes widening. "I shoulda plugged 'em! I shoulda....I..."

"There there," cooed Mrs. Portly Pantaloons distractedly. Turning to her husband, she asked, "What bus line, dear? They seemed to appear out of the sky." 

Portly Pantaloons, grunted, mumbled something that seemed very definite in his sonorous baritone, and pretended great interest in a bird across the way. Mrs. Portly Pantaloons was still talking, and Razormouth was still blubbering, but by then, Portly Pantaloons' mind was far away, calculating ways to manufacture more monkey wrenches, more dentist's smocks, and more shooters-through-the-guts, at the least cost, with the widest distribution, and at the highest profit. 

The bird, whose name was Captain Poopybird, lifted its tail feathers, pooped, and sang.

___________

for Sunday Muse #156. 

Hail! Assassin

Hail! Assassin in your golden robe,

you are farewell incarnate, cold as a stone tablet.

Your masters dole out a new Fahrenheit, warming nothing

while whispering to the Ferryman that there are no coins, only handshakes.

You are farewell incarnate, cold as a stone tablet,

a corporeal machinery producing fine dust

while whispering to the Ferryman that there are no coins, only handshakes.

You palm medicine from your keepers to those already dead.

A corporeal machinery producing fine dust

is your rubber stamp of onionskin love, a doublespeak of no return.

You palm medicine from your keepers to those already dead

as your masters cry, "Hail! Assassin, in your golden robe!"

_______

A pantoum for Skylover's word list.

The Wax Angel

In the widow year of the bootleg bible,
seven plagues were worn in the hatbands of devils.
In the fortune cookie of the palsied calendar,
these were read--
fear, death, murder, disease, hate, horror and waste.

In summer, I planted a window box;
in autumn, a stripe of leaves on the sill,
and in winter, the pretty almost-weightless tail of a sleeping beast.

In our bed that November, you left me your bones
and gave your body to the noisy starlings.
Each evening, I wait for them in the dusk--
they assemble and there you are, whole again;
watching me cry over impossible things.

In the widow year of the bootleg bible,
a man selling loosies was killed right there on the public sidewalk.
His killers couldn't see him, and so they felt for him with their hands.
He said he couldn't breathe, but they wouldn't spare him any air,
because he was not a bird, and they were not the wind.

My love, survivor of the funeral year,
I bought you an angel carved from wax,
a pretty thing from a funky little shop before they lost their lease.

I will place her carefully between your ribs
to help you re-make yourself when you return.
Until then, I have my crystals, a Magic 8 Ball, and my Catholic faith,
a mighty fortress against the vagaries of life in your absence.
________

Goodnight Kitty

Excuse me.
Please lie down on this plate.
I will watch over you while you sleep.
If anything happens, just jump inside my mouth.
I will rock you on my big pink tongue.
Wear these bread pyjamas.
Just trust me.

Believe me,
despite our differences,
I am here to protect and serve you.
Say goodnight to the cameras, it's past your bedtime.
Goodnight stars, pop-popping in the street.
Goodnight moon, goodnight air.
Kitty's here.
Kitty cares.
__________

for the real toads mini challenge. my absurdist take on the nauseating, paternalistic, entitled, baffle 'em with bullshit, tone deaf authorities in Missouri, USA.

apologies to Margaret Wise Brown, author of the beautiful and beloved children's book "Goodnight, Moon".

 


 

Hands Up Don't Shoot

Can someone please tell me

what in the hell

is going on

in America right now?

When one person is denied justice

we are all denied justice.

Hands up, don't shoot. Justice for Michael Brown and all human beings.