Hannibal In Hell

Hannibal in Hell
Idles away the empty hours
Being flattened by frozen elephants.
They didn't like the Alps
All that much,
So if they toss him on their tusks,
It's all good and well.
Paybacks are a bitch
For Hannibal in Hell.

Look at me!
I have come back as a cat,
And I don't care
Don't care
Don't care.
Go to work, get out of my hair;
You can trust your brand new drapes to me.
I am unconcerned as unconcerned can be,
And though I used to love you,
Now I just can't tell.
Paybacks are a bitch
As Hannibal knows well.
_______

"Now you will be cut down. You destroyed the wild animals, so now their terror will be yours." --Habakkuk 2:17


Hannibal of Carthage crossed the Alps with 38,000 men and 37 war elephants in order to attack the Romans. Over half of the men and nearly all of the elephants died on the way.

A Slip Of The Tongue

I was slack-jawed, sleeping,
Dreaming of fences, birds, festival,
Discarded saints and elevated gypsies,

When my tongue slipped out of my mouth
And went straight to you.

It said things, glorious things, bold things,
And it did things, too;
Things that brought it home lolling, full of itself,
Trailing cats and canaries like confetti.

From that time on,
Though my tongue is back, my control over it is gone.
It whispers to me when I am
Slack-jawed, sleeping, dreaming of waterfalls, blooming arbors, suns burning in the faces of rivers...

The power of my tongue compels me,
And I go straight to you.

I say things angels envy;
I do things the damned haven't thought to try.
My tongue declares you devil's food,
And leaves us to our own devise.
_______

love song

when the moon shines
off the backs of my eyes,
it makes the whole room as bright as noon to me;
and so if i can't stop myself
just can't stop myself from watching your dreams,
you must forgive me, darling,
don't be like the others and scream.

and when my claws draw back
into the black softness of my toes,
believe me when i say you are the only one who knows me
knows me this way,
and though it's true i kill, it's never just for fun;
please believe me, sweetheart,
don't be like the others and run.

my instincts are my angels and my angels say
this one is the one to love at any cost;
i have to have someone i can close my eyes and lay with,
someone i can hold my breath and dare to trust.

when the sun goes hot and high
and your dreams go dry,
i will be the shadow that comes when you need it most;
there will be those who will warn you
that i will tear you, wound you, down to the bone,
but don't believe them, darling,
don't be like the others i've known.

my instincts are my angels and my angels say
this is the one to love and shelter if she stays;
but darling, oh sweetheart, i just don't know what i might do
if you're like the others and start to run away.
______

for Fireblossom Friday

Poe

His cape wet with rain,
Edgar Allan Poe slips into a 24-hour chain pharmacy under cover of night,
And asks the pharmacist for laudanum.

He is recognized.

The pharmacist is a crap poet who lives in a nearby bedroom community.
He participates in fantasy sports pools,
And worships Charles Bukowski.

Poe is strung out; desperate!
His shaking hands offer out-of-circulation bills, in wads.
"Laudanum," he repeats, with urgency.

Instead, the pharmacist
(whose name is Ted)
Starts rhapsodizing about "Buk".

There is so much blood.
Officers from this quiet suburb have never seen
Anyone impaled with an umbrella before.
A nearby display of magnifying reading glasses has been upset in the fracas,
And their empty lenses bear useless witness
To the waste of a human life.

An answering machine beeps.
"There is one pharmacy call," chirps a robotic female voice.
It will be pending for all eternity,
Or at least until the yellow crime tape comes down.

Meanwhile, Poe has scored something from a teenage boy loitering outside the 7-11.
He doesn't know what it is, but he takes it anyway, because
His girlfriend is gone,
His mind is a roiling snakepit,
And he has nothing else, nothing at all
To protect him from the storm.
_____

The Wedding

The bride loses interest half way through the ceremony.
She sits down on the altar steps, kicks off her shoes,
And yawns.

"You don't need me," she says without turning around.
"Marry my Boredom,
my Capitulation,
my Resentment.
Fan them, frame them, fuck them...
I don't care."

This is not very romantic.

He marries his desk instead.
Tiny airplanes launch themselves from its carrier-like surface,
And he snatches them as if he were King Kong.
The blades of their little propellers core his hands and give him stigmata--
He is the Christ of the plastic cockpit.

And the bored bride?
She departs,
Becomes the darling of the seance,
the Magic 8 Ball of the other side.
"Try again later," she says,
Hoping that someone will love her blank blackness,
That someone will shake her, hold her,
Join her in her soft remove
On the other side of the veil.
______

Bruin

A bear grows tired of shitting in the woods.
"I am even tired of salmon," says the bear.
The bear becomes a Catholic,
And sends the Pope out into the forest to fend for himself;
"Kneel on the soft moss," the bear advises the Pontiff.
"Open your heart to God.
Be still.
Hibernate."
Soon, His Holiness is snoring in a cave,
Insensible to ecclesiastical issues
Or earthly temptation.

The bears climbs in a window.
"Teddy bear!" says the girl whose room it is,
And what fool would be so churlish as to argue?
Here,
There is companionship,
Fritos,
And indoor plumbing.
The girl gives over most of her bed to the enormous, stinky Bruin.
"I love you," she tells him.
"Baw!" he bawls, and it means
"I love you, too."

All summer, they play.
No one dares to bully her.
She buys him a jar of honey and a rosary
With money she has saved.
The bear snuffles loudly, and it means
"Peace be with you."
"And also with you!" she shrieks, and does a cartwheel.
Bless the bears and the children--
Give me one good reason why not.
_______

The Amish Hit Girl

The Amish hit girl hits a snag--
Running you over with a buggy turned out to be
Harder than it looked;
See,
She wanted to dispatch you
Expeditiously,
But nooOooo...
She had to start the horses
One time, two times, three.

What, nothing to say?
Have you finally gone to the devil?
No more bonnets, no more scrapple?
The Amish hit girl
Can catch and grill you;
Take off her long black dress
And fucking thrill you.
She can quilt like a stone Dutch ho,
She can ring you without a phone,
Or just kill you.
The Amish hit girl...
Nice.
_____

linked to Real Toads open link monday