Bewares Home
Single fleet
How we can merge on a Continental Drift is up to me
She's comes apart
This is the only way backs in
Turbulence bests us otherwise
That
Pitch chase and drags in swirl pre disposed moments?
I'ma feeling of pause
Ifns a bluff
Scene one of myriad finance?
Eclipse glare meniscus orders down
I only got an in an out focus for table of me in line for hours of next meals getting chewed
Every acrobat on mind has winged in wars.
Old or sceptical
Generals an Admiral
My ability is return the crap that sent that
Illusive wonder they stay on land with tech
One day Donald Duck
was down on his luck
chewed on a juicy hot chili
soon forgot how he felt silly
Where the groundhog has chewed the chain link
I slip through a brittle-boned hedge, and I am there
where geese sail a puddle-deep fog.
We taste the sea in its brine-washed ripples
splash through its salty clouds. Ohio rides on
oceanic currents, the Atlantic gets swept up
on gull wings, surf drifts West for miles,
then flops down and paddles deeper.
The sky has startled fisheyes in it; between the
soggy woods, aquatic scales slide and gleam.
Long-winded showers shatter where mermaids
chase, plunging on through dazed turnpikes,
or pausing to comb their wavy hair at windswept
rest-stops along Interstate I.75.
He leads me through East London,
docks, pubs, among the stray dogs, the
River Thames lapping at low clouds.
We find the second-hand player in a street
where the shops are dusty holes under the arches
of viaducts and railway bridges,
Me carrying the portable Dancette record player
in its hard Bakelite box,
lifting it by its leatherette handle, and I,
small for my age
but wanting so much to lug it all the way home.
The plastic cuts my fingers,
sharp corners bark my shins.
Father talks of his life here, the blackouts
and bombs, rationing,
and the bloody Saturday night street fights.
He whistles tunes
from a songbook of dead crooners.
That evening sitting together, with Sinatra -
watching the dark blue Capitol label
spiral and blur,
hearing the unseen belt under the bobbing needle
as it chewed vinyl -
reliving the clunk-clunk of our boots
as we pushed back fog-muted miles.
Years later, finding that player again
in mother's attic, lifting the machine
feeling how light, it is,
willing to take another walk with him
yet not knowing how to catch up.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart." Hellen Keller
Snow-tipped mountains ranged around the prairie,
Small rivulets wavered down the steep sides,
Spreading nutriments, flourishing flowers.
Bright red poppies, and yellow celandines
Swayed all around, as a balmy breeze blew.
Aiding agile grey geese gracefully glide.
Above the shade of a cluster of oaks.
A few old men tended a flock of sheep,
Most chewed unleavened bread, nibbling on cheese.
Till to a tavern they'd go, to drink beer.
Placed 1
COUNTING SHEEP
Mike the mouse tossed and turned in his bed
with visions of furry sheep in his head
but instead of sweet dreams
he heard their loud screams
as they chewed on his favorite bread.
So if you can’t sleep, take a cue
from Mike, his sheep, and all the ewes.
Just laugh and don’t fret,
You'll find no regret,
For dreams can be silly, it’s true!
©Sara Etgen-Baker 2025
if you wake up with a stick in your bed you have a dog
if the stick is chewed into eighteen pieces you have a puppy
if there is no stick you either do not have a dog
or your husband has pica
You crave my honey-glazed legs,
relish my breasts with practiced flair.
You chip my wings mid-conversation,
While dissecting my dressing,
Too raunchy, too clingy
never quite suited to your taste.
You want me plated just right:
thighs weighed in grams,
skin stretched to your appetite,
injected for volume, deboned for ease.
my fear tenderized for flavor.
Still, palate demands more
side dishes to seasoned
to disguise the ravine taste buds.
I am your blistered indulgence,
charred silhouette served hot,
just a piece of meat.
But my journey to the plate
lasted sixty days crammed,
in a A4 sized cage
under heat lamps.
I cried once. But here,
crying is considered inefficient.
They said my flesh would serve a heavenly purpose-
add protein to your ambition.
But even my bones bore devotion
chewed, splintered and sucked clean.
There was once
a pink plaid elephant
whose trunk I kissed to sleep.
I won her fair and square—
a coloring contest,
Top Value Stamps.
She slept beside me
every night.
Her trunk, softened by chewing.
One ear, forever folding
from a bent wire frame.
And a stab wound—
just below her left flank—
a potato peeler,
courtesy of my sister.
Then one day,
she vanished.
We moved.
Boxes swallowed childhood things.
Grown-ups said nothing.
I missed her for fifty years
until one day
I typed her name into eBay—
a whisper
into a well
not expecting an answer.
And there she was—
chewed trunk,
crumpled ear,
scar stitched
in the same exact place.
Time is a circle.
And miracles wear plaid.
I held her in both hands,
afraid to blink.
She’d come back.
She had always
been coming back.
Were you looking for me? Her diabolical dog Disaster asked.
She rolled her eyes.
Disaster knew she was looking for him.
She had called his name over twenty times.
Who tore open the cereal box? Why is it on the floor?
Disaster circled it but admitted nothing.
Who chewed up the new roll of toilet paper?
Disaster looked pointedly at his mistress’s husband.
Why does he always blame me? The husband asked.
My dog was always misbehaving
Although he never did like my Hat-He-Chewed.
You ever get this idea in your head. This menacing feeling chewing on your brain like that moment you decide to swallow your chewed gum. The insecurity that everything in your life is just plain wrong. You wake up fine or even happy yet with a smile upon your face you sit blindly scratching open your skin trying to survive your millions of thoughts. Someone ask if you're alright and you don't even think twice with an "I'm fine" response and part of you is not lying. You're okay. Just trapped in your own head space beginning to wonder if you're just dead weight and if so is it too late to become weightless and just float away. I wonder all the time if when I say I'm fine if secretly I'm screaming that I'm lying and if so can you see it on my face?
So many pearls before the swine
He didn’t know which to pick
So fell asleep and dreamed to fly
Straight up to some Alpean peak
There he took selfies, drank high tea
And then he flew back home
Down to the native piggery
Where one day he was born
His dream was suddenly cut short
No pearls around he saw
He yawned and in surprise he snored
Chewed pensively a straw
He thought “if I were not a swine
A butterfly I’d like to be
On multicoloured wings I’d fly
This time towards the sea.”
Trailhead latrine,
cracked mirror—
three of me grinning wrong.
A soap shaver's chewed itself down,
there's a beetle on its back in the basin.
I clean my hands as best I can,
wipe them on my pants,
get out,
back into wilderness,
where I don't have to face them.
You have no idea who I am,
I am not the one who’ll move the mountains,
I am the one trying to climb them,
And I am not happy with myself.
I am a stranger in my own body,
I am everyone’s punching bag,
I am constantly being used,
And I am always being chewed up and spit out.
I am not who you think I am,
I am far from who I want to be,
I am not someone’s everything,
I am everyone’s nothing.
I am just another star in the sky,
I am but a moment in time,
I am a grain of sand on a beach,
And I am a drop in the ocean.
I am not done with this world yet,
Even though the world is done with me,
I am still a diamond in the rough,
And I am not done writing my story yet.
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