What Happens When The Father Laughs
At The Words Of The Son
Mom, If I Eat This Stupid Picnic Stuff,
It'll Make Me Barf

A crease forms in her brow, cracks
open her head, split to the brain pan,

eyes slurp, dangling socketless
like two abject squid,

nose hairs enlarge, slithering Medusa snakes
hissing sinister venomous drippings

Amazonian nipples grow Transformer weapons
live blades sniffing for flesh like bloodhounds

mouth opens cycloptically (O Sigmund!)
silent as Poe's Tell-Tale old murderer

until the unholy Voice says in whispering thunder 
-those distant horses of the night-
smilingly, horrifyingly: 

Watch for Ipecac in your coffee, Dear.

Dream Fixins

Secret desires of docile lust
Tentative dreams of hedonistic delight
Unmanned fantasies and shadows of inner turmoil
Foresighted illusions of sympathetic silence

Freud plops down on the barstool next to my dog - Sue
Eating a banana cream pie and ridding himself of fleas
He says - Sue, it is not who you lay down with that counts 
  but rather do they have the right manners
Sue growls - Dobermans have no recognition
of inner struggles between egos
Just a snoot full of teeth 
and a profound disdain for psycho babble

Taxes

When I die
I'd like to know
where all my excess
taxes go.

Into a pot marked,
"huddled masses,"
to spike their gruel
with thick molasses?

Will they shod
a child or two?
Or roof a
hapless couple who
...was bad at poker?

Or, will my taxes
line the vest
of some slick lawyer
from the west,
who sells 'em high
or buys 'em low,
and knows the tricks
to make 'em grow
...in his garden?

Pillage, plunder
greed and rape
form slippery slopes
that tilt my axis
when I think about 
them taxes. 

Country Boy

(kickin' dirt, worryin' stones with boot-toe)

I gotta get this pome down,
These words have'ta come out,
Or they'll bust my skull wide open,
But I tell ya, 
Reality sure won't like that I did,
That editor in m'head will fuss and fume,
Do every thing possible to keep them in,
"What right do you have, metaphorin' other people's
Lives by ridiculousin' your own?"
Could be, I guess,
But such doubt won't keep me from doin' it
Like it has the others driven underground,
Oh no—
Each external editor will have to reject
All thoughts out of hand
To keep me quiet,
But that won't stop the words, 
Will it?

(wander)

To My Dinner Guests

This is such a fancy feast
Each one will get a fork
And each will likewise get at least
One knife to spear her pork

And if you ask for extra tines
We'll quickly acquiesce
Because we read between the lines
And do not want a mess.

So tuck your bib, and have a seat,
Prepare to be refined.
Pray this:  "God's neat, let's eat,"
To gluttony resigned.

My Foot Fungus

We all know that money talks
although woe is me
the message is
all to often
"GOODBYE"

Clifford Stone - enots2@erols.com