Gets tougher and tougher
They powdered your buffer
And buffered your puffer
When found that you suffer...
Mental Metro Central-
Residential Rental-
Open Dystopian-
Anti-Utopian-
Fallopian Syndrome
There once was a man named Stan
Who used to live in Japan
He ate a dish
Of puffer fish
And spent all day on the can.
Does your lover woo you
like a puffer fish woos
his perfect mate?
If not … well
there are plenty more
fish in the sea!
Note: How it works
Male pufferfish build sand sculptures to attract mates.
The female pufferfish decides if the male's sculpture is good enough.
The male pufferfish uses shells to decorate the ridges of the sculpture.
The ridges stabilize the sculpture and slow water that might disturb the center where the female will lay her eggs.
The female pufferfish enters the nest and joins the male cheek to cheek.
The female lays her eggs and the male fertilizes them.
~Nature on PBS
It is too early
it's a middling time.
Nature lures,
leads us on to a pause
where the weather
is all wrong.
Ice licked stems
are unforeseen
by a too hasty thaw.
Defrosting groundhog's drip
in an almost warm sunshine,
loggers lean on silent buzz saws
their foreheads dry and clear.
People take a day off
from the winter grind
bobble hats
and puffer jackets
are laid aside like bad dreams.
They predict that tomorrow
the snow is going to be heavy footed
and extra lumpy
any hint of avian romance
will be indefinitely delayed.
Yet today is middling mild,
and Pollyanna
dreams of daffodils.
My mingle-mangle mismash mixed bag of stuff
Is a pastiche, potpourri, patchwork of remnants rough
The accumulation of this junk was not so very tough
Feather dusters, ink wells, rulers, silver links of cuff
Pincushions, a beaver tail, old Spice, smelly snuff
Nails, shoe polish, tape, puffer that does not still puff
Potholders, elf statue, rags to give car a buff
Petrified cinnamon roll, please don’t give me guff.
Hungry for ideas -
a fish dish would help,
an unhinged arm's length away,
way over the Yangtze River,
where, far from the nearest eyeball,
drunken cormorants dive
for silverplated carp.
Alas, any old iron skillet
will not fit this oily range,
I will have to cowboy it,
first, beans and baby powder
to talcum my muffins
while I break-in some roughhewn chaps,
then to rodeo this coal-black cooker,
as I lasso a China man,
a wise angler who knows how to catch,
the natural gas of an angry Puffer Fish.
Ducks are flying,
mild weather in February
has lured them,
to find and build nests.
The hunters are all taken by surprise,
The beavers are hard at work,
patching and mending rickety dams,
loggers are leaning on their buzz saws.
People are storing bobble hats,
and puffer jackets.
Today it is snowing heavy,
the ducks are heading to Florida.
Bird romance
indefinitely delayed.
An advent of raptors loiters over mall roofs.
hooded eyes scope the neon-lit spaces,
the concreted waste lands.
We wake to their screams as if this were High Sierra,
not Ohio where parent’s try-out or manage children,
open party stores, hunker through the coming
and going of baby Jesus; de-ice puffer jackets.
Gloom is plowed behind snow dunes.
The red-tails roam in loose federations,
their young, mob-handed and loutish,
the mature work alone,
scything through small birds,
the weakened and walking.
The hawks wing-dance proclaiming their time,
a time of frost-bitten electric barricades,
of bobble hats and mittens,
while unseen, a wind-rattled thorny brier,
recites its litany of seasonal prayers.
*Image of Kamo Tree Lined River by Wik.
being ku in japan - nk
the orient
japanese
rice ferment
one *sake please
mount fuji's
most awesome
kamo tree's
cherry blossom
ruled by the chrysanthemum throne
home to unique unknown
poisonous puffer fish
delicacy fugu
macaque takes from your dish
the snow monkeys they knew
realm mired calamity
calmness ceremonial tea
2022 August 23
*1st Place*
Charlie New-Ku
~~Charles Messina: Judged 2021 October 18
RZ & HMS/PSSC; *Line 4, websites counted (1 syllable) "sake" as in English, not pronounced as Japanese (2 syllables) wine; thus, improvised.
Faces are getting longer,
despite the rosy, wind-scrubbed cheeks
a dripping daylight has lost its flavor.
Tepid Malls un-freeze the warm-blooded,
except for the usual geese in the parking lot
who’ve lost all willpower to migrate.
Murky puddles block-up public restrooms,
clog rumors of any first flush
of coming Spring.
We are patient but twitchy,
fat fog-addled puffer jackets
steam on hallway hooks.
These testing times
demand more attention,
which makes for knitted brows
and longer faces
as heretofore to
mentioned.
they supped on Bjurholm
drank Kumis
dined on haggis
and rubbed down
with sassafras oil
some made dessert from ackee fruit
and had puffer fish and shark fin soup
what word of satan they spoke
that they are evil and vain
there vanities covered by
thongs of
Xinjiang
and cursed all that forbade there way
of loving
they made fun of the foolish
and cursed the wisdom of
yesteryear
they summoned evil spirts
and did forbidden dances
to music which
praised the acts of whores
and whoremongers
they triffled the need of
husband and wife
and cursed those who wished
them to save and be healthy
they were evil before one another
and evil with one another
they made images to those
who would be appulled
and were fools for doing so
as a cloud from there our bodys
made them gag and repent
they sopke dogs as mens mothers
and there acts of procreation
and of what was
the female dogs meant to them
Go away, Today,
You have overstayed your stay.
You think you're tough,
We've had enough it's been rough,
It's time to go.
Go now,
We can't allow
This bedlam to last,
You've had your day,
Just vanish, we say
Be a memory of our past.
Shove off!!
Oh! you've acquired a cough,
From someone you infected.
How do you feel?
Do you feel ill?
Has Human breath been detected,
A virus in you,
That is new?
Caught, from a human being,
It's our breath that causes your death,
We can't believe what we are seeing,
A vicious virus,
Is not desirous,
To anyone on Earth.
We've invented a puffer,
A virus snuffer,
That will kill and stop future births.
As we wave goodbye,
We all breathe a sigh,
All feeling very chuffed,
Who would have thought we'd kill the virus,
Who was so desirous,
With a Super Sniffer Puff.
I’d like to come back as a puffer fish.
It is most truly my favorite wish.
With poison tipped spine.
I’d feel quite fine.
Don’t turn me into a dangerous dish.
November is a thin needle under the shortest rib,
often it slips past your moat, your portcullis,
your castle walls unnoticed.
The fire in your kitchen splutters
and the wood is too wet to rekindle it.
Only then do you look through a spy glass
from your highest tower
see the wraiths churning in the sparse woods,
see the dervish dance of demented bones
resurrected from last year.
Chill November is here
and the guards are asleep.
The dark winter of your content
needs a new puffer jacket.
Call for the seamstress of your soul,
call for the mitten maidens.
Gather up the woolens
for all the wind soaked feet
that have to march on.
Winter roars back,
May slips from view,
April has lost its anchor
in these storm tossed sky’s.
Songbirds scrabble under
canopies still too thin
for cover.
None look up but huddle
in puffer jackets recently stowed.
It snowed all day,
now the wind is shoveling daffodils
out of the soggy earth.
Mice nibble roots
brought up from old larders.
House cats glare from frosted windows,
bare feet wrap themselves in wooly
Christmas gifts.
When May arrives it will find us
defending slowly melting igloos.
Water is filtered through strong drink.
Fortunately, we have almanacs
and long range forecasts
so the present need for handmade arks
may not be necessary.
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