Caracol (Snail)

Caracol (Snail)

 

 

menacing Persons, left behind

the shadow

of their passive insensitivity

        

[crushed housing]

        

Regards, city-siders

we accept

your delirious ovation,

and neatly recite

        leather-bound policy

on behalf of

those greased morsels

who never owned a voice

to publicise the anguish

of patented choice; glazed

will and self-raising skin

        

domestic squeals

permeated by human erotica

        

[de-beaked] performance

making quiet outcry—

splitting hairs

in barbed cages,

but ne’er on heartless heads

        

God gave them half

a chance to speak,

until world

made them swallow

such lethal doses

of cosmetic flaws;

 spirits,

drowning in accessories

        

lined stomachs

are spilling dignity;

        

I know you’re green:

         it’s those

vegetables

went down the wrong way,

carnivorous lust in reflux

        

…I’m rambling

to protect my swollen testament

        

gather my thoughts,

before you squash them carelessly

        

So haven’t we all

recoiled

from the overt stench

of superior dialogue, cut and

pasted in social gridlock

        

Though we meant not

to gauge a relished reaction,

merely to mirror

the deafening mannerisms

that were hushing up pink faces

        

[Too late] now that

rigor mortis

got us

tongue-tied

under the table, blissfully

  Drinking a toast

  to

pretty conversational pieces

that would never

disturb the ecology,

(assuming we all politely agreed)

        

Here’s a good pinch

of snickering laxatives, yet

to be administered by watering-can

       

lucky lady sat on a

 cat with sixty-nine lives

        

The humble bee,

  he sits on his own sting

steaming weapons too easily

evaporating his focus

      

And didn’t you know—

by avoiding death,

            you were killing people.

        

        

(First appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Issue #26)