Sharky suave loan shark got ahold of my great aunt Jean Sue
Loaned her twenty thousand at the rate of eighty-two
Eighty-two percent is way too high I said.
Joke’s on him, she told me. I will soon be dead.
Gigantic laugh from the alone drenched bough in surf
Groping I hug the bones of shark from the sea bark
I am pointedly going on a snake hunt today.
Most probably going to catch one quickly and keep it in my pretty loo.
Will dress her up for parties, Easter and Halloween too.
I plan to name her Sharky, she will be excited to be mine.
She will become my muse, my sidekick and my slithering sage.
She’ll snake around our Christmas tree delighted, dressed so fine.
I will keep her ‘til we both die of ugliness or old age.
A while back my soul took a wrong turn
Sometimes I wonder if I had a tough birth,
Did I come out feet first like a blue-faced luge runner?
Banking right, then left onto the icy cuff
launching into a starless pit of nothingness-
Maybe mom's breasts were filled with booze.
Maybe too much old-fashioned strap
for the most minor infractions.
Without love to temper stings
life is just one big muddy slog
void of any spring.
I'm hesitant-simple decisions are difficult.
and that ever-present haze of mistrust
once sparkling relations turning diamonds into dust-
Maybe I snapped when that pissed off farmer.
wrapped a dead snake around my neck-
For freeing his herd of cows-now I'm a bit of a control freak.
Wanting to palm butterflies and honeybees.
Maybe it was the fifth grade "teacher"(you know who you are).
With the strong cologne and loose hands-
That made me into a quicksand man.
Everybody I meet gets sucked into the ooze.
I need to let it all go-clean the mental lint trap.
But these sun crushers, present and past.
Keep arriving in sleek sharky waves.
Bearing loose plastic fingers and black satin drapes-
What do the poor hang onto?
When all the trees are gone.
When hearths are quaked to crumbs...
With nowhere to hide from the whirling gray eye of the storm.
In the afterbirth, show boaters will arrive.
One spoonful at a time. To feed a million shaken lives.
One blanket to warm the sharky shoals.
One cross to shelter the fractured mast of hope.
Soon after, show boaters will flee to silver ships.
Setting sail for gilded homes.
Wrapped tight around paper souls.
Far removed from Haiti's howling winds.
That lick the salt from burned black bones...
No invitation to board these ships of privilege.
Like there were so many years ago.
She was a freckled faced child who
dreamed of being loved...
He was nothing but a heartless bastard who hated
everyone, especially us.
She was the protector of her sisters and
stood up to him as tears rolled down her
angel face...
His day of reckoning came one sweltering
Oklahoma summer in July...
She entered the house to the cries of her
mother, begging for him to stop..
The angel child had suddenly become the
protector of her mom..
She grabbed his belt which lay nearby and
swung with all she had...
Blood streamed down the side of his
face and down the front of his shirt...
The only cries now were from him and no longer
from her mother....
I love you, mom...
Your loving daughter,
Sharky
At the risk of being called “rabble-rouser,”
I think poor old Barky Von Schnauzer,
should practice his aim,
his master to maim,
in the back end of his very best trousers!
My hero I would call dear old Barky,
if he could just muster the stealth of a sharky,
and covertly steer,
right straight for the rear,
of that great big old bag of malarkey!
I think I should send Barky a big four leaf clover,
so his bad luck would finally be over,
he could retire his fame,
move away, change his name,
to Bowser maybe Lassie or Rover!
Obviously I have been driven completely insane by that stupid t.v. commercial!
Happy St. Paddy's Day!
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