God in Dog Years
the dog died
at the bottom of
the stairs at 91 in
dog years when the
boy was 11 in people
years after boy and dog
enjoyed countless days of
fun in the sun together, after
dog taught boy the meaning of
friendship, loyalty, sacrifice, love,
after reincarnating herself in the
puppies of a half dozen litters,
after boy realized that DOG
spelled backward is GOD,
she died, and that very
night, the boy saw
her constellation
in the stars
Unholy Trinity
“I have to get out of here!” Id said to Ego. “There
is just so much to see, hear, smell, taste, touch!”
“Not so fast,” Ego said to Id. “It’s not that simple, Id.
It’s not that you’re wrong. It’s that everything has
consequences.” “I’m gone!” Id said to Ego. “You’re
mine!” Superego said to Id. “Already have your foreskin!
Coming for what you have left!” “Slow down,” Ego
said to Superego. “Leave Id to me. I’ll take care of Id.
Id is naive. Id is impulsive. Id is a child. Id wants, Id
needs, Id demands. Id lives in darkness. Id is not bad.
Id merely needs to be tamed by the light. Id simply does
not know what is best for Id,” Ego said to Superego.
“Very well then,” Superego said to Ego. “Do it your
way, but if Id runs wild, Id is mine!” “You can come
out now,” Ego said to Id. “Listen Id, I like you. You
can be really fun. Don’t know what I’d do without you,
Id, but whatever you do, please don’t do it, Id, without
consulting me first. Superego has it in for you, Id.
Superego has a scalpel with your name on it, Id. I know
it sounds crazy, Id, as old school as Superego may be,
believe it or not, I’d swear Superego loves you.
Loves you, Id! Just doesn’t know how to show it.”
Ghostly Feast
As often as leap year babies are born
the ghostly feast is prepared by phantom
gourmet chefs of the billionaire class –
Americanized oligarchs promising “trickle down”
to everyone lower on the food chain,
famished and craving the morsels and crumbs
prophesied to fall from the banquet table
to all salivating for the lowest hanging fruit,
utterly ravenous to devour the red meat,
ever forgetting the Russian proverb: Free
cheese can be found only in a mousetrap.
When will we learn that lunch is never free?
For we are but prey for wealthy cannibals
preparing spectral feasts as mere bait for the
true feast of which we are the main course.
The Tale-Tell Toilet
The cartoon
was the brainchild.
It was always, only the
cartoon that inspired the
motive. Is that not enough of
an alibi for an innocent four-year-old?
The perfume bottle was a spitting image
of the flasks the mad scientist used to brew
the bubbling concoction. It was never about the
perfume. It was about the flask. The four-year-old boy
simply needed the flask to self-actualize as the mad scientist,
to stealthily gather and contain all the mysterious liquids and powers
from the bathroom and kitchen to brew the foaming concoction that would
change the fate of the world. It was never about the perfume. The perfume was
flushed by the little boy. The perfume was no more. That was before the interrogations
began, with the usual suspects – his older sisters who insisted they did not know the
whereabouts of mom’s perfume. Of course, mom was quite the sleuth, a real
sleuthhound, a veritable bloodhound of a mom. Have you ever been
brought in for questioning by a sleuthmom? She turned her eye,
her nose, to little four-year-old me. She brought me into the
bathroom for questioning. “What have you done with my
perfume?” I only remember my heart racing, pounding,
sweat pouring like rank perfume from my clammy
flesh. “Nothing,” I choked out. That is when
she pointed, as if in slow motion, to the
toilet: “How can you be so innocent
when that toilet has never
smelled so good?”