lobsters

lobsters applaud
the lunar eclipse
and the sound
is like a gunfight

lobsters are
the nutcrackers,
the pliers,
the toe pinchers
of the sea

lobsters are hard
and uncaring,
except after moulting -
teneral, tender,
their outsides as soft
as their insides,
they recall those supple,
planktonic weeks spent
bobbing in the light,
and for a moment
the sea tastes like tears.

A puppy walks into a bar...

A puppie walks into a bar, but doesn't do itself any real harm. It does get a little spooked and pees on the floor. The bartender leans over the bar and is looking down at the puppy which is now standing in the pee and the puppy doesn't know the bartender's there, it's just looking around, quivering like puppies sometimes do and the bartender says "Hey mac, this is a bar, not a restroom. If you're going to piss on my floor you can get out." The puppy looks up and sees the bartender for the first time and vomits. Milk and puppy food. The puppy was kind of chubby, but by the time it was finished vomiting it was looking lean. The bartender storms around the bar. He's going to kick the puppy out. Literally. With his foot. And he's coming up to the puppy and the puppy holds up a paw, signalling him to wait. The bartender is taken aback. Such a human gesture, and it had such a solemn look on its face too. So the bartender is standing there, and the puppy has got its paw up and then, still with its paw up, it squats and drops a tiny little puppy turd on the floor, between the pee and the vomit. The bartender rushes the puppy, the puppy turns and runs out of the bar and the bartender chases the puppy and the puppy runs out into the road, and the bartender runs after him and the puppy dodges a car but the bartender isn't fast enough and he is hit by the car and he goes flying over the top of the car, bouncing of the windscreen and the roof and landing heavily on the road. He's unconscious, he's bleeding all over the place. And the puppy runs over to him and starts licking his face because the puppy is lost and tired and hungry.

knock knock

"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"For fuck's sake, Lynn, open the goddam door! I want to see my son."

heart on sleeve

just like you asked,
my heart is on my sleeve,
staining the fabric,
making it impossible
to put a jacket on.

i am cold as stationary blood.
a vulture roosts
in the hole in my chest
where my heart used to nest

i did this for you,
can you do something for me?
show a little compassion,
drape my jacket
over my shoulders.
that might help a bit.

then leave.
for some reason
i don't care for you
anymore.

all i want is to float
lazily in the sky
waiting for animals to die.

i have trouble understanding things

i have trouble understanding things. i am constantly mystified, which is okay. mystified can be a beautiful state to be in, especially when looking up into the sky, or into the branches of a tree, but most of the time i just feel helpless, or stupid, like i drank too much beer.

I can follow what people are saying, but when they finish i find that instead of listening to them i have been mulling over their first few words, trying them myself, wondering how they chose them. there are so many words to choose from and so many things to talk about. if i am in a shop or buying a ticket on the bus it is okay, i know what to say, but if i am just being there with other people, i don't know which words to use.

i have read a lot of books, fact books, not story books, but they just add to my confusion. writing is a lot like talking and some writers, like some talkers, take a long time to say anything, so i mainly read books for children. people who write for children don't complicate things. maggie at the library gets me books from other libraries because i've read all the books they have.

i think there must be a book out there with a few simple facts in it that would straighten me out. i feel like everyone knows which book i'm talking about and they have all read it except for me. i know this isn't true. i don't think that everyone is keeping a secret from me, but i do think that what i need to know is out there somewhere, in a book, because everyone seems to do the same things, so someone must have noticed it and written it down, if not how to do those things then how they are done. if i don't find it soon i'm going to start writing it myself.