.................................
The Cat DId Not Know
.................................

He ate the stem
of a daffodil.
which was amazing,
since cats know
their poisons.
Sign of the times,
he didn't even get sick.
His mind prepared
for a leek, he got
a leek. Cleared up
the whole yard. The rest
of the daffodils died.

At first, I was angry.
I did not know my
poisons, either.

 
.................................
How Did I Know Perfection?
.................................

I was aborn from the womb
of Pearl Harobr. My mother
ejected me like a bomb.
My father rejects me still,
while fumbling around printing
my latest book. I know he's Satan.
He murdered my Mom across the hall.
3 enemas a day, he'd given her
to tear up her intestines, her stomach.
He had had no use for her anymore.
So, he stopped her up with a cork.
A morphine capsule in her bunghole.
Now she is a voice in my head
telling me to finish Dad off.
That would be Beauty. Just like
Pearl Harbor. He was an SS man
madly anti-Japanese. Put me out
to wander the desert near the Quonset
hut which stood for Japanese Relocation
Camps in Amerika. Mom & Dad
spoke double-talk all my life.
Crazy is the only way. Regular
Lotus Position. See, 50% of the books
he stabs with the poems he doesn't like.
Some people would be saying be:
he's 86 years old, now. Bad year
for printers. They could get their
red car axed just like the commercial
for a righteous daughter.

.................................
Alice Olds-Ellingson
.................................

 
Copyright © Alice Olds-Ellingson
August 2000

...several poems in this room by Penelope Davis Greenwell...
the story of eleven naval men
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