Dear Gary,
        Just to confirm that these 3 poems have been forwarded to my
co-editors for WORM 20.
Take care,
Margaret



Even Cats Got Nine Lives

There, lemon and baby powder!
She comes this way at the same time every day,
just as Lucky Jack starts the dogs to heating
and Little Jimmy pulls off his first latte. Virgin,
though her breath reeks of the counter girl
at Roxie's Deli.

Get me one, will ya?   A mocha light
with a shot of sugar free hazelnut.
Shouldn't have caffeine,
the heart and sugar a killer with my diabetes.
Make sure Jimmy cools it a bit.

Here, pour it in the cup and stick the straw
between my lips. It's cool,
right?  I couldn't feel if it was, but I ain't going
to end up in Bellevue again.

There, smell, Mick's got a new batch of mags,
the little perfume things pollute the whole street,
but bet he's glad for them. They cover up
the scent of the snow he's hid.

Don't go.  Karl is coming, you can catch his odor
as far away as the Empire, rat shit,
rotten rat shit at that,
worse than when Jimmy's cat
barfed in Queenie's bag.

Mean son of bitch, thinks I know
something what could get him in trouble
and I do.  See, he's a shill for the narc cop,
Collino, the one that with cheap wine
seeping out of his pores even on a freezin' day.

Anyway, you gotta stay. If you don't,
I'm liable to be swallowing my tooth,
which will do me in as quick as any dt.
He thinks I'll tell, everyone knows
my motto is 'see no evil, hear no evil,
feel no evil,' though I damn sure can smell it.

There, catch that?  They work
in that bank on 6th, one with enough
foo-foo juice to knock down a horse,
covers up the super has cut her water off.
The other, primrose, squeaky clean,
but it don't cover up what she does at night,
and that ain't what choir girls do.

Come one, mutt, pull me over to the Park.
Gotta get you a bath.  You stink
like a poodle, instead of a honorable rottie,
serving as a crips' legs and life.

*

City Gratings

The scent of cooking fills the air,
garlic, lemon,
rosemary, lamb,
mint, hellenic mysteries,
vapor from a vent partially covered
by gray blankets and red sneakers.
He sleeps and dreams
of pets past and future,
a little dog who ran away,
a gray cat frozen in the snow of 86,
a goldfish he forgot to feed,
a frog,
a cricket in his left pocket.
If he sleeps rasping,
dreams of food
he can not eat
and pets he can not hold,
will the city charge him
levantes et cubantes,
or jail him
for being a victim of somebody else's war?

*

Dichotomy

I go hither and yon,
to and fro,
swing and sway,
up to the sky,
lowdown,
my way,
directionless,
but every direction
all together now.

but I digress,
lead you astray,
I was speaking of something else,
not this, not that
not some other thing,
see?

no!
I thought not.

I don't seek to titillate
but as I separate,
wouldn't it be dandy,
to say nothing of handy as candy,
if what I (you (we (they))) mean
would expand,
amplify,
extend,
bloat,
dilate

but then that would mean
I (we) (it) would have to mean
something
other than mere average appearances
would speculate
and do
or don't I?

there is no way to tell,
which me is me,
which I is you,
which is protector
or needs protecting,
which the diptych
or the wax
or the letter,

and so hinged here and now
on the spot
or unhinged where you stand,
folded, filed, filled
and fluffed

or I to me to you
or not

Do come visit me again
and this time bring cookies?


Feb CE Chaffin, Celebrations and Blessings at:
http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html --- Writer's Hood at
http://www.writershood.com/... Poets for Peace.... ¡Poemas sí, balas no!