College Poetry Night

photo credit: Abbe Arenson

Poetry night November 2009

thought it might be good to roost on college campus
for poetry night,
the night of the new moon,
listening to fresh voices for inspiration
something to assault my elder brain with key words
to give my dulled senses new food
I was hungry to write again

about thirty students and their professor assembled
I was the oldest one in that room
absorbing their ages and innocence
watching their squirming angst as
the professor told them to come up and read,
read something they wrote,
read something by someone else,
he began the evening by reading his own work
I don’t remember one word

the first young man stood right up
macho, tanned, firm arms ablaze with colored inks
and clingy shirt to compliment,
he reminded me of Michael Fitzsimmons
in “Peggy Sue Got Married” -  his words curt and forceful,
trying for hardedge reflection,
the girls whispered and smiled
this was the one Peggy Sue would crave

the white girls came up one by one
shiny haired, nervous and generic
despair, depression, break ups, near  suicides,
the pattern was set for every designer jeaned one of them
except for one who mumbled something at a Nascar pace
about trying to understand her two year old cousin,
while a petite blond peeped in a high overture to
Dickinson’s, “I heard a Fly Buzz”

Then a beaded and braided, “player” swaggered to the mike
silky smooth in his Barry White delivey
the voice overrode what he was saying
he will be a DJ or radio host
the velvety voice will net its’ lions’ share
of female prey

I do remember the bespectacled student
I do remember his serious rap, his ramrod vibe
his righteous tangent on hope and God
and Jesus being the light – the way
he spoke with clarity and passion,
I pictured a stern mother
delivering  Biblical justice with a firm hand

my eyes wandered through the herd
scoped out  ‘boys’ through ‘cougar’  eyes,
I liked the dirty blond with goatee -
found myself still  drawn to the same ‘type’
that appealed to me in high school  4 decades ago,
my mind buzzed back to days of mad crushes,
learning what the word cunnilingus meant,
French kissing and copping feels  under bleachers and
of course rejection
ah, the ‘60’s, the best times ever,
but back to poetry

the rest of the poems seemed like fine silicate
loose words slipping off pages
kids read, then were rewarded with light, polite clapping for all,
one woman in her forties held worn sheets of paper,
pieces  about cancer, death and killing
I would call it melancholy “schmaltz”  at best
go look it up, gentiles

when time finally lapsed between readers
the Professor got up and read another of his poems
which was funny to the ear
as the young crowd all laughed at the staged lines,
but I heard the undertones ,
of wanting fame and reverence for self
for wishing that swooning college females would hive
at his honeyed words and experience,
it was obvious  mid-life was imploding,
the balding pate, the soft body looked computer chained
the humor was truth doused in itching powder
tickling him without mercy
about all that had been denied

when he finished, the professor looked around-
was about to call it a night
when from the back stood a skinny, dark haired guy ,
looked about twenty,
he slinked up to the podium on tall khaki legs
standing silent for a moment-
no notes, no books, no laptop in attendance
we waited as he took in a breath
and began to recite
and recite he did,
stanza after compelling stanza
a poem not his own, but so impacting in its’ delivery
it should have been,
the subject was about going back to rehab,
it cut gashes into my psyche
my blood took to splashing hard against the arteries,
he made me shiver in his sincerity,
I saw scenery and visions raped by knowledge too sage
for one so young to know,
but he spoke with eloquence -
with the fullness of living behind thick shadows,
of speaking a churchyard elegy to a corpse still alive
this was the moment worth waiting for,
this was ‘The One’ worth hearing,
the one who was calm, yet dangerous,
the one reeking of undigested fumaroles waiting for a shunt
the audience silenced by his chainsaw reality -
the poet he memorized should sweat him

there was silence for a second or two after he finished -
words like scorching rain were still wetting
and burning the audience
and then came the clapping
hands reddened by hard smacking
for the savior of poetry night, the true artist among us,
or rather a true actor who walked past all of us
walked right out of the room before the accolades finished -
more of an exile than an exit

the veneer of the night finally peeled  -
I left having hope that poetry was still strong,
not lost and diluted like cheap internet
poetry anthology submissions
that publish anything for a few bucks -
I walked out to my truck under the dark new moon,
slipped the key into the ignition
but didn’t turn it,
I closed my eyes
waiting for the moment of impact…

Porn for Piece or Peace?

Porn for piece and peace

Saleh al Jalaheen should have left the movie theater -
should not have stayed so long -
he had an easy fifty dollars in his pocket,
big money to make in Syria in 1994
all he had to do was the legwork -
a quick dropoff,
but the legwork consumed him
time and dreams all became forged
by the showing that day
inside the Salwa Cinema

Even though it was a film from Turkey,
Saleh didn’t need to know the foreign language
he had entered a theater bathed in soft-porn
featuring, ‘delights of the flesh’
the things the Holy Book told him were forbidden-
advised him to avoid

Suddenly up front and bluntly before him
in size and detail
big engaging sex-
womens unclothed bodies-
Saleh became the lion stalking it’s prey in the dark,
his pupils expanded with visions of pleasure
his ears attune to the soft moans,
his brain locked into the secret moments
his tongue salivating for the taste of ambrosia,
of shapely naked breasts and stiffened nipples,
of positions and fetishes he never imagined -
his apterous body could not abandon its’ nest

When they paid him,
he thought he followed directions
but no one warned him about the movie
poor Saleh did not heed his employer’s instruction
after placing the bomb beneath his chair
he forgot his culture
forgot The Koran
forgot all about the evils of voyeurism
but mostly, he forgot the mission

That fifty dollars was to be coveted in vane
it could not cover the loss of his legs
blown off because those appendages
were fixed like mafia cement to the floor
Saleh didn’t even think about moving to another seat
where he might have been spared

Saleh became a casualty to sex
lost both his legs without getting any of the pleasure
from either the sex act nor the terror act
he became condemned as a terrorist failure
he does not qualify for the virgins promised him in heaven
and most likely, that was the only sex he will know…
The destruction he was going to impose upon others,
imposed itself upon him

Some people just aren’t meant to be bombers for a cause,
they should forget doing favors for easy money
which itself is seduction
How is it that being mesmorized by ‘piece’
could bring about both pleasure and horror -
And yet by the sheer act
of sitting there in the Salwa theatre
surrounded by soft female images
on the big screen,
it erased all thought of Jihad
all thought of hate and
of planting bombs for money.

Imagine that… ‘piece’  for peace
the sheer idiosyncrasy of it;
piece for peace–
Well… it kept Saleh, the bomber
occupied and thinking more about glorious sex acts
than the act of committing terror didn’t it…

Catching “The Kraken”

Apalone Ferox – Soft shelled Turtle

The myth of the Kraken

Twelve months of moon phases have passed
since I began fishing this lake of Lethe,
each day the circadian rhythm suspends
and I am granted 2 hours for fishing
in my Zen dimension.

I stand like a Moses poised over the lake,
commanding with a mighty rod -
I WILL change the dynamics today
by interrupting fish schedules,
all catches to be released
and no ill will between the species.

Even a slow fishing day
does not diminish the essence of clean mind absorption
of taking in the saturation of the lake,
birds coasting overhead,
and even the red belly of Flyglobespan
leaving Sanford and traveling due north to Scotland at 6pm
is only one more pair of beautiful wings over the horizon.

Mysterious forces swirl just beneath the sheath of water
a magnified-mottled softshell skirting the depths
like an armed floating leather shield.
“The Kracken”, I dubbed it -
Avatar with largess guarding over this territory -
turtle of intimidation,
respecting that we both have a purpose here.

I cast my bait away from it,
watching for the hooded head with
two circular orbs revealing its’ position.
Sometimes obvious masses of  bubbles surfaced,
expelled by both ends of it’s reptile alimentary canal.
Cretaceous ‘Kracken’ and its’ ilk
belonging to this planet millions of years prior to man,
still in basic uniform adapting better than most.
The dark waters mysteriously stifle the pattern
of brown and olive
all monochromatic and symbiotic as one unit -
it is the red and white bobber that’s grossly out of place here.

Suddenly two winking eyes
and massive soft plastron breaks the water
neck extending,
attached to a thick body breaching two diverse worlds
of wet and dry.

These are the largest soft shell turtles in the New World,
sea monsters scanning the lakes from their secret aquatic depths,
making the neighbor children squirm and shout
when the swift-pattern shell passes by.
Many times I was startled by it’s sudden appearance
and I did not want to hook it,
did not want its’ hissing and snapping mouth near my
fingers and toes.
This liquid warrior,
soft frigate fighting vigorously for it’s space,
and it was me who was the invader,
the unwelcomed ‘occupier’

On land there is no faster turtle
and in the lake it’s wet lightning,
I continued to see him as more than a simple species
this turtle was the embodiment of MY modern myth,
voiding the edges of reality to become
a leviathan we all feared would latch onto our lines,
chase us down and eat us whole.

Bringing in bream or shiners too slowly was always a risk,
the Kracken sometimes trailed my catch.
This reptile has a nose made for sniffing death and
is quick to nab anything moving erratic,
like wounded fish or even small ducks-
bottoms up!

This day there was an edgy wind
and wide rippling of the lake.
It was late afternoon,
the sun had been sacked by a wall of gray clouds,
the tannin water did not have the clarity of
sunlight illuminating behind it,
preventing my normal aquatic acuity
from reaching its sight into
the water’s most intimate wet spaces.

I cast out and felt the pull-
just from that tug my adrenalin spilled,
I had hooked something large!
Turtles jerk at a hook differently than fish
and suddenly my line was heading out toward the weeds,
but not sharply down as with a hooked bass.

There was a struggle coming,
from a risky looking sky above
and the waves and reptile fighting against me,
I fought with an invisible power upon the line
as it thrust against the pain of impalement
from a new, sharp hook.

I let it have more line hoping maybe it would loosen,
maybe free itself and swim away,
only to reel and find it still fighting-
fighting against the hook,
fighting against domination,
fighting to preserve its’ turtle dignity.

For a while the line stretched taut,
the rod bending in contortions I didn’t think possible
until finally it was exhausted
as I pulled it closer to shore -
tangling through massive thick hydrilla,
water cutting against it slowing its surrender.

I knew his temper would be ill
his mouth tender and injured
and susceptible to infections-
that hook could prove as lethal as a wounding bullet
to both of us,
one stick and the smallest of deadly bacteria
takes precedent over the largest of beings.

We both struggled for control,
the weeds thickened around him,
the rain began beating down,
but I could not abandon the fight-
my line was still jerking.
I jumped down from the sea wall
to the waters sandy shore
anticipating the worst
thinking how using needle nose pliers,
would be like tackling a minotaur with a safety pin.

As I reeled while standing braced on the shore,
rain saturating my every fiber from head to toe,
the massive beast came into view,
but,
it was not the behemoth I had so imagined
the carapace about 2 feet long — not 5 or greater-
as magnified by the mocking water,
it certainly lacked in Karken proportions.
It’s long neck and legs flailing-
a hook swallowed – the line inside the mouth
it bled red – it’s agony and instinct intact.

My Kracken -
myth of the lake,
myth of my mind -
swimming against the storm tide,
struggling against the pain,
bubbles trailing a route to panic-
animal brought down to scale.

I reached out to try and net him,
but he jerked and pulled
there was no restraining
a very mad, agitated turtle.

As I pulled to get it closer to shore,
it’s feet gave one last thrust of traction
breaking the weakened line then lurching down,
the bobber floating up
riding long the choppy waves.
I watched as a torpedo hurled back to the deep
past the weeds,
past the thick walled and banging water,
past the now fractured tale.

I worried my hook would cost Kracken it’s life,
would it bleed to death, infect and rot?
Sadly, I looked at my pole with dangling,
worn 12 lb. test line,
my head down and battered by rain,
I picked up the wet tackle box and left.

The rain yelled at me,
I had clearly violated the tenets of the lake -
lightning forked above my head,
bent branches whipped me hard with water
as I passed beneath them.
The storm screamed and cried and moaned
for it’s loss,
I listened to it’s anger that whole night,
and thought of nothing else except
how it would feel to be hooked and reeled in,
skin pierced and ripped as vessels burst,
I too cried along with the howling storm…

Green and Slimy The turtles Revenge

Photo Credit: Paul Rackman/Abbe edited

These poems are based on the fact I love to fish and feel extremely guilt ridden when I catch anything. I release them, but sometimes I hook a turtle which is worse than hooking a fish. I have written some “Lewis Carrol”, nonsense type poetry devoted to my angst and guilt. And I still fish almost nightly, with those two feelings latched to my side. This is one of my stories from  Tales Beneath the Electric Blanket.

Green and Slimy – Turtles Revenge

Green and Slimy,
the turtles wobbled up from the lake,
dripping a trail of seaweed in the letters S O S behind them.
Arms locked, tails sharpened,
hurling canasta cards and dice,
“Down with the human” the turtles shouted in unison,
disguising their voices using a pig Latin oink,
which seemed quite odd seeing as they wore
the pinstripe suits of white collar terrapins.

There were eight in all–
more than the fingers on one hand,
more than the toes on a Hemingway cat.
Large, small, long snouts, wide mouths, accusing eyes.
A cadence of edgy anger as they marched
like militants with shields on their backs
up to my back door.

The largest of the group gripped my arm with a savage intensity
demanding I surrender my devices and potions.
Leaning back on a carapace paved with algae, he spoke,
“We have come”, he said with pupils blacker and meaner than octopus ink,
“To remove from you the things that fault your human character.”
to which I said nothing afraid perjury might froth from my lips.
“You see,” he took my head into his long, manicured claws
forcing my eyes to look upon the hoards chanting in Hebrew, or maybe Farsi?
Neither of which I spoke, but somehow understood by the captions
magically circling the words above their craggy heads.
“You see,” he continued,  “how you have complicated our lives?”
I looked up his nostrils and two yellow snails winked at me.
“Whatever do you mean?” I asked.
He grabbed my fishing poles and broke them in half.
“Those are responsible for this,”
he turned a curvy profile to show me a hole in his cheek plugged with
old, chewed up Bazooka gum.

“Oh my,” I said as remorse trickled from my mouth like melted butter.
“Our blood is upon your hands,” and each turtle smacked a wet, red clawprint across my cheek.
“I never intended my hooks for you.” I stated.
He shook his wrinkled head, “It is not so much the hooks
as it is about the alchemy of white flour,
“Your human food has created an obesity crisis among the turtles. ”
I took notice that each protesting reptile was pot bellied.
“You bait the hook with soft, white puffs and expect only dumb fish,
but your magic food has all of us fighting and longing for more.”
Every one of their heads nodded in choreographed agreement.
“Not only have you made us fight each other for the bait,
the methane structure of the lake is different now,”
They all turned and lifted their tails,
a grueling chorus commenced sounding of hunters blowing duck calls.
Massive green bubbles emerged and burst mid-air
reeking of broccoli and seaweed with a touch of feculent fish.

I put one hand across my nose and the other to shield my eyes.
“I am truly sorry for this,” I apologized.
“Keep your white flour and hooks for your own twisted politics, maam, I
assure you, we do not share the same fetishes and fantasies.”
He signaled to the others by tapping his plastron
then kicked the remains of my fishing rods out of his way.
The others followed him back into the lake
leaving behind seaweed,
and the distinct smell of a German restaurant
while a swastika remained stamped into the grass where they had goose-stepped.

I took my bread and tackle box
and threw it all into the trash,
then went inside.
No more bribing the fish at the lake,
No more barbs through cheeks,
they were right, the pure ecology of lake creatures
was being corrupted by me,
toxic white flour and curved steel.

I picked up the broken pieces of rods
and walked back to the trash.
A single, red-eared cooter emerged from a downed can.
He was shoving what remained of the loaf of bread into his plastron.
We looked at each other with vague acknowledgment,
I turned to leave and he cleared his throat,
“I’m sorry to bother, but would you happen to have
any mayo and lettuce to go?” He inquired.
I ignored his question and walked back inside the house,
I had created a generation of reptilian carb addicts
all because I enjoyed fishing.

No longer can I tolerate the smell of cooking broccoli…

The Bloodletting of Erzsebet Bathory

Erzsebet

When dissecting the events coloring  history,
it is hard not to judge royalty -
so consumed with inbreeding,
inbreeding as a result of greed for keeping
treasures and power within select families
for political gains.

Sometimes these alliances of power and land holdings
grow genetically flawed and
proved themselves a recipe for self-immolation,
an amalgam that sparks legends and myths to be generated.
And in the case of Countess Eresebet’s, a reality so harsh,
an ‘Act’ of Parliament resulted,
declaring the mention of  her name a criminal act.

This niece of the King of Poland was scarred
at the moment of conception,
the maleficence of genes dividing within the zygote
became cells dividing into sects of evil compounding evil,
spliced between layers of schizophrenia and insanity.

Her head crowned into a dynasty of the arcane,
the richest most powerful Protestant family in Hungary.
1560 welcomed Erzsebet Bathory into a rich life
below the shadows of the Carpathian mountains.

By the age of five, they called her Elizabeth,
epilepsy  rocked the delicate, porcelain skinned child.
She was beautiful, spoiled  and catered to,
better educated than most men.
Elizabeth knew her standing was different,
she saw it the day when a gypsy was held for a crime.
Brought outside the castle,
Elizabeth’s young ears heard  the screams
and she loosed herself from a nanny to watch justice:
the gypsy’s horse sliced open and eviscerated while still alive
the condemned man then sewn inside to die
this impression became a raw infusion of dark portentous thought
latching forever into Elizabeth’s psyche.

By age eleven, raven haired Elizabeth was sent to her fiancee’s Castle ,
where she was groomed for marriage,
to prepare for the raping
and taking of all childhood innocence, a custom carried forward.
Her marriage deemed a political allegiance,
her husband a soldier eleven years her senior,
Ferenc Nadasdy, gave his gift to her, Castle Csejte,
a new home for her pleasures and pain.

While he busied himself with fighting the Turks,
The engaged 13 year old, Elizabeth gave birth by a male servant,
the baby was removed along with the hushed secrets
always dulled within castle walls.

At 15 she married as highest royalty,
her husband took from her, the last name of Bathory,
a  more socially prominent name.
Her new mother-in-law tended to dominate and criticize,
her new husband was busy on distant battle fields as
Elizabeth was living a life of boredom
and a recognition that she needed attention.

True bliss came only on her visits to Aunt Karla
and pleasuring themselves with indulgent, all female orgies
and extravagant flagellation.
The newlywed  Countess,  preferred buxom women, hot wax,
and hot branding irons.
Ferenc specialized in his own devices of torture for the enemy.

Elizabeth became absorbed by the occult
taught by her servant, Dorka.
With her nurse and several ‘witches’, Elizabeth had a new hobby;
beating  female servants for her sexual delight,
inserting pins into their lips and fingernails,
hot metal spikes for girl’s tender body parts,
cutting them with scissors,
shoving oiled papers between their tender
toes and setting the papers on fire.

Elizabeth delighted in having a servant taken into the freezing snow,
to have water poured upon the girl until she froze.
If the weather was fair,
Elizabeth poured honey on her victim
waiting  for the fleas and rats and wild animals to consume the body alive.
Heaven and lust found at the fringes of mutilation and
bloodied female corpses.

In between the torture, She bred spawns for legacy,
a daughter, then two children died. She produced two more heirs,
but heirs to what?
Did they suffer from her sicknesses?
Did they desire their parent’s predilection of pain as pleasure?
Where were the children when they mother was having her orgies
and killing sprees?
Did they hear the screams, did they peek as Erzsebet had done
with the gypsy’s horse?

Don’t you wonder what the bedroom chambers held
between two people so thriving on hurt and suffering
and hungering for perverse attention?
Frenec was recognized as “The Black Hero of Hungary” -
one of  “The Unholy Quintet’ known for his ravaging cruel nature.
But even the Count became repulsed by his wife’s insatiable capacity
for overt sadism.

1604 brought death into Castle Csejte as Ferenc died,
a war injury had spoiled the blood.
Finally, after 29 years of marriage,
the mother-in-law was removed,
Elizabeth now had complete domination,
a new meaning to home sweet home.

The countess was aware of her age, her faded beauty
and one day after a release of blood from striking a servant,
she welcomed a warm rush of red fluid against her aging body,
a vitality unrecognized before.
She demanded a servant girl be drained of blood
so Elizabeth could bath and drink in this resource of eternal youth,
revitalizing herself by the lives she would sacrifice.
After that Elizabeth got greedy,  setting up cages in the dungeon
hoisted high metal bars with perforated bottoms -
spikes penetrated the flesh of the victims for draining blood.
These cages provided Elizabeth the showers of rejuvenation.

Needing more ‘available help’,
in 1609 she advertised her castle
as a ‘finishing’ school,  which it literally became.
Elizabeth was grateful for so many virginal girls
and their rich blood source.
She saw to it they each received a Christian burial for their sacrifice -
even though the priest wondered how so many died mysteriously.

Elizabeth grew sloppy in her obsessions,
a victim escaped,  bodies were reported thrown out of the castle in
laziness.
The King ordered Elizabeth’s cousin,
Count Gyorgy, governor of the providence to raid the castle.
Gyorgy waited for Christmas, and sent his men in -
They found victims scattered about,
50 bodies had been buried  beneath  the castle,
one victim was being drained, but still alive.

The trial was political,
they wanted no scandal,
and no royalty to be put to death.
Elizabeth did not plead anything,  nor did she make an appearance.
The jury heard from those who had suffered for sometimes months of unrelenting vile servitude for Elizabeth’s bloodthirsty fetishes.

The ‘cache’ of ‘ritualists’ assisting the Countess
were sentenced in ‘Biblical’, Christian justice;
their fingers torn off with hot metal pinchers,
their tortured bodies then tossed into a pyre.
A few lessor criminals were simply beheaded.
Proving religion was just as guilty of
having its’ own vicious, fetish perversion
in their desire for retribution.

Elizabeth was ordered sealed inside a small room at the castle,
no windows or doors,
only a small opening for food and ventilation.

Her remaining in residence at the castle assured that her children
kept their royal inheritance.
Assured the good name of Bathory was unspoiled,
even with those who claimed she was a victim of a conspiracy.
By the time she died in 1614, she had tortured almost  650 girls,
keeping  hand written lists of incrimination,
possibly taking pleasure from the sheer numbers
or the remembrances themselves.

Mostly they were virgins,
mostly poor or lower peasant class -
They all served the Countess and country beyond the call of duty.
The records were sealed; no one was to speak her name for a century,
for fear the words themselves would release a dark force
or spell bringing her deeds back in spirit form.

What became of her children?
her Castle Csejte fell into ruins -
Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, the  fictional account
of similar events of psychosis living among the mountain.
Stories spread throughout the world.

Was it was due to simple inbreeding?
To the people talking inside Erezsbet’s brain?
Or maybe it breaks down to spoiled, bored  ‘titled people’
with too much time
on their bloodied, royal hands.
Perhaps there were too many tantalizing tales of perversion
on the battlefield and from the Church.
Too many twisted opportunities with little respect for human life.
Elizabeth Bathory’s life will not be remembered for her
duty as loving wife or mother,
but as a bloodthirsty dominatrix who needed to inflict pain
to satisfy her own.
These are the secrets still lingering today,
still whispered in the Carpethian mist
and read off the stains from castle dungeon walls…

Night At Sea

Night approaches starboard from the east
porous and liquid as the sea below
they merge embraced like engaging lovers
swaying gently in their exchange of rapture

The thrust of the boat
carves white slits into the wave-veins
they bleed through the heart of the water
vessel upon vessel

The world looking neither flat nor round
but ‘catacombed’ in between
the chemical flux of hydrogen and oxygen and
I, mere mortal, lost in the balance
at the mercy of esoteric nature
on a sea-faring man made invention

Watching the world through a veil
of hazy ink blotting up time and destination -
Galileos’s stars the only lucid oracle
mesmerized by the cradled rhythm
from the parting labial waters -
I close my eyes as the engine chants
a droning diesel mantra

Salinity aerates through the resolute wind -
my skin glistens like that of a neophytes
wet and thick with the juices of rebirth
bonding me to our great Matriarch
and gravity, the physical umbilicus
chains my body while
all vagary of thought ruffles leeward

How grand it is to feast
upon this epicurean night
tacking along an aqueous avenue
turning a blind eye to convention
fed by the unfurling of winds,
Mariner of this liquid cosmos
sovereign at the helm of Neptune’s meridians…

Mary The Elephant – A Cash Cow’s Fate

Actual photo of Mary the Elephant hanging in Tennessee, September 13, 1916

A Cash Cow’s Fate

Mary must have felt like Eve when spotting the denied fruit
so tempting, so luscious
just one taste
just one mouthful couldn’t hurt anything -

Mary’s dark eyes fixated upon the treasure
her trunk reaching out to take in the smell -
a broken hunk of watermelon left in full view
she remembered as elephants do, the taste
the sweet, pink ripeness
making her mouth water
even her aching abscessed teeth could handle this

On that September day in Kingsport, Tennessee
nothing could stop her five-ton desire -
surely not  the skinny handler
the rusty mopped ‘Red’ Eldridge riding her back -
He warned Mary to stay away from the watermelon
or pay the consequence
Mary decided his words were spoken with a serpents forked tongue
as she fixated upon the only thing truly worth living for
as a mighty hunger drove her on

Red tried to stop her by hitting her on the head blow after blow
gaffing his sharp hook behind her sensitive, ears
Mary did what she had done to several other abusive handlers
she threw him to the ground-
only this time she had had enough
and stomped upon his red head
until it was as broken and spilled of contents  as the mellon
she then walked away free
walked free to her beloved awaiting treat
now she ate of her forbidden fruit with supreme satisfaction

Mary savored each morsel as if knowing it was a last meal
even as a blacksmith appeared and
pumped five bullets into her side
and Sheriff Gallahan braised her with his .45
she showed no pain or remorse when taken back to her tent

At the two-bit failing Circus show of Charlie Sparks that night
Mary performed as she always had despite the bullet wounds,
despite the blows and fresh, bloody scabs from the gaffing hook,
But some human with a voice of conscience
decided upon Biblical justice -
and just as Eve was caught and reprimanded,
so did someone cast a ‘Genesis’ fate
onto this 30 year old elephant by implying;
“I will greatly multiply thy pain”.

That would draw the crowd!
that  would bring the Sparks Brothers Circus publicity!
The lynching of an elephant -

Mary was to be hung in typical Big-Top fashion
and just like the show
did they go
elephants head to tail,  a four pachyderm procession
led by Mary on her final tour of the Apocalypse

2500 humans with a morbid curiosity
marched behind to the Clinchfield Railroad yards
for  free-admission to the biggest show in town
for a look upon punishment for committing evil

Mary’s wrinkled leg was chained to a rail
another chain was fixed about Mary’s neck
and a 100-ton crane with a Herculean task
hoisted  her 10,000 pounds off the ground
but her leg was still attached to the lower rail
as they pulled her neck up
and as her body swayed
the 7/8” chain broke

Gravity pulled her gargantuan weight down
bones were heard to snap
ligaments torn
Mary trumpeted  in pain from the broken hip
that planted her solid weight hard
against gravel rock and timbers
Mary squealed, protested and struggled
as they shackled her once again
but finally the task was completed -
she hung there a while in complete protocol
a vision of  ‘old’ Southern redemption
reserved for any crime committed back then
by those of African ancestry

After the last spectator left -
they brought poor Mary down
cut away her tusks
then plowed her broken body into a burial site
at the railroad yard

We can learn a lot from the imprinting of elephant memory
about how an animal’s brain really thinks,
we know Mary loved the taste for something sweet
and had a bitter taste for revenge after years
of being forced into labor
of being manacled to what cruelty and abuse
humanity had inflicted upon her -
years of daily blows to the body-
of gaffing hooks that tore into the flesh-
and a mouth full of untreated aching and rotting teeth
it’s no wonder an elephant could snap
it’s no wonder an elephant really never forgets…

don’t know who to give credit for-

Abbe  2005  – Please report all animal cruelty to your local Humane Society

Alice and the Fair

photo credit/colored by Abbe from original illustration by
john Tenneil

Alice And The Looking Glass Fair

Back in the 60’s
‘Fairs’ began to morph
within the confines
of shopping center parking lots
taking several days to initiate ‘Wonderland’

Flickering lights spilled out as a neon revival -
Alice would have loved the rides, the organ music,
the effervescent noise,  grandiose grins,
sugar highs and blue cotton candied coated tongues
all worn as a badge of kaleidoscopic affiliation

We took it all in
absorbing it like Kodachrome onto gray-matter
walking hand and hand through
trashed popcorn boxes, torn ticket stubs,
and mazes of tossed cigarette butts -
We ran amuck on ‘mad-hatter’ missions
mounting gyrating, painted beasts
suspending gravity and stomachs,
everyone hangin’ out just for the  ‘vibes’-

Now,  40 plus years later,
these are only foxhole eclipses into memory
life has become media infused entertainment
we are enslaved to cell phones and computers
we socialize through emails, ‘tweets’ and texts
down time equates to learning new and improved
advanced electronics

The  ‘old’ days seem  like a stone cutters holiday
But I  would go back if I could
to enjoy the cognizant honesty of it all
Those were the days when breathing was done in color
when Alice ruled
and we were mesmerized by a simple ‘carny’s’ paradise
riding high on the backs of caterpillars and dragons
gorging on life as if it was ours to waste
peeling dreams off the vapors of clouds -
The ’60’s was a Peter Max, tantric planet
where love was groovy and Hendrix was God

What fun it was living the parallel life with Alice
to circumvent earth and
spawn a whole new galaxy
and something as simple as a parking lot Fair
was enough of a ‘high’ to overwhelm -

At some point we grew up,
stopped conversing in Jabberwocky -
stopped toking with the Cheshire cat
but memories are fair game
and every now and then
the mind snaps into rewind-
and suddenly you are standing
behind life’s looking glass
wanting things simple
tired of life’s morass
so you close your weary eyes
and wait for Alice
and let that small hand with all the details
lead you through the mind maze
one more time…

In Memory of the Children of Andrea Yates

Dedicated To the Children Of Andrea Yates 2001

She stands for a long time
as if gravity is concrete -
staring through lost, glassy eyes
sheets lay limp as exhausted sails
a testament to the surrendering of wills

Long dampened strands of hair
stick to her face
she looks out toward the water
watching for them to come home
when the children arrive next time
they will be aglow with smiles,
full of hugs and celebration -
a house finally resounding with life

For now the baptism abounds
She sees them reflected
from beneath an aqueous mirror
so small  – so white – so still
faces now calm after the tempest,
reality finds her drenched and disheveled
she is exorcised, stoically calm
a rock hard silence deafens the ears
the heaving of her chest
is the only physical sensation she feels
there are no more waves left churning the water
no more shrieks – nor children’s hands violently
slashing through the wetness
to grip onto something solid

The bathroom light becomes a blinding sunlight mockery
her eyes hollow of vision
her heart emptied of soul
how did it come to this
why did Rusty ignore storm warnings
why let her captain a ship
ferrying the devil with a mutinous mission-

Those babies were conceived in liquid
held sacred in her Quiverfull womb
and back to the water she has led them
back to the water by her capsized emotions
emotions that left her more than once submerged in
zones of sterilized and sedated padding
enabling her to float just slightly above the madness
till now

For everyday it will come back to her
heavy as an iron anchor
they can condemn her
they can sentence her
it doesn’t matter
from now on she is tethered to memory
The Valedictorian lives behind bars
pills keeping the demons tamed
as she goes through this life
spitting out words from her Bosch-womb/brain
recanting that her children’s fates were sealed
because their mother was deemed evil

Andrea now lives in metered purgatory,
every time she touches or hears water
she feels that tinge of suffocation
she feels her pulse rise as theirs was silenced
she too drowns inside
for vision cannot be obliterated
by a simple drawing of the lids,
she will always see them
their mouth’s last bubbles rising as muted screams
those five beautiful faces looking up
innocent, wide eyes full of panic
they will always stare back at their mother
out of breath
out of time,
silently pleading
silently pleading…

Abbe 2001

Whose Rain? Poem to Jim Morrison and John P. Riley

photocredit: The Doors  The Complete Lyrics

Whose Rain?
For John P. Riley and Jim Morrison

Sometimes now when it rains
I look out the window and
think of my departed friend, John P. Riley
who used to gaze at the droplets then say,
“that could be the same water that baptized Christ.”

I always listened respectfully seeing he was ever so wise
and so much older -
but I wondered -
could it be the same water?

How about water emptied from Hitler’s tub?
Or perhaps Gandhi in the Ganges?
Am I being pelted by droplets from sages and misfits?
John was an atheist
why did he think about Christ for Crissakes?

Maybe those drops that clung to me yesterday
were from some ancient mastodons diluted piss or
possibly some left over sweat off the brow
of a very drunken Jim Morrison singing
in those tight, black leather pants clinging
like wanton beggars to each thigh -
now that makes me feel like standing outside
and getting
“free fall flow river, flow” drenched
umm –
perhaps I should rethink the orthodoxy of John’s words
under the clouds of a dark and brooding sky
I could learn to love a stormy saturation
certainly it was my dismissal of reason
that made me doubt his logic
or maybe it’s really because
both our analogies
are all wet…