Playing Doctor

Inside of the crawlspace we found a teddy bear patient.
Inside of that we found a rock from whence it was hewn.
Inside of that we found a commemorative place setting.
Inside of that we found a timeless haircut.
Inside of that we found a little dab that did it.
Inside of that we found a chalk outline silhouette.
Inside of that we found a sweaty groundhog.
Inside of that we found a malfunctioning pocket watch.
Inside of that we found a pad of the very best butter.
Inside of that we found a postman with a sprained ankle.
Inside of that we found a donkey willing to bore him.
Inside of that we found a talking paperclip.
Inside of that we found a romantic male lead who believed in us.
Inside of that we found a series of colourful footprints.
Inside of that we found a dance move, fresh for the busting.

A Word Sonnet For Kelly Osbourne

Kelly,

you

seem

to

have

forgotten

which

side

of

October

Road

you

belong

on.

This Means Something

1.

Gnashing her chili
with a steak mallet, Jill says
‘This is important.’

2.

Her tenderizing

has exposed many juices

in her wild eyeballs.

3.

With infectious glee,
she's turned her vegetables

into snooter lines.

Where does a Storm Trooper sit in church?

A pew-pew, pew.

The Cannon’s Mouth

This morning, my local opium smuggler
ported his clipper on my landlord’s porch.

He thrice rang my doorbell, as is his god-
rotting seamen custom, to deliver my post.

I accepted my mail, & handed the trader my
grandson, for it was time that the boy learned

the ways of the sea before he got the wrong
idea about it in that sissy schoolyard of his.

Looking down at my envelops, I saw a
hand-folded magazine; apparently I had

once more, been published without my
knowledge; I didn’t mind it much though.

It was as if I had just come back from the
bathroom to find my food waiting for me.

The magazine landed on the porch with a
decisive plop, & oozed like a rare steak.

The opium smuggler started looking at me
quite angrily; I knew he’d discover that

my grandson was actually an elderly duck,
but I was hoping it take at least a week.

The trader challenged me to a face saving
sock hop; I turned & fled like the dickens.


*Read my most recently published poem in The Cannon's Mouth. Buy a copy, here.

The Orphan Pills

In a world, where squadrons of United Empire Loyalists ruled the gritty, metropolitan fightscape, one teacher named Ms. Avila dared to make a difference when she read her class Loyola’s Exercitia. The students instantly became hooked on self expression. Whenever Ms. Avila read, every pair of eyeballs in the room would suddenly wrack themselves like ecstatic eight-balls. It was not long until she read from Flip That Sweat Lodge which, to no one’s surprise, transmogrified the entire St. Teresa library into a bloodletting hospice. But it was when she read aloud from her tattered pages of The Orphan Pills, that the entire classroom filled with thick plumes of baby powder. It got into everything. The class turned wild. Ms. Avila misplaced her walking stick. Someone grunted. The legend that the pen was mightier than the walking stick, fell to the proposition that a walking stick, when wielded at a teacher’s temple, was mightier than the Sundance Film Festival.

Bombardier

That's my plane.

Evangelical Scientists Unveil Theory of Intelligent Default

WATERLOO, ON -- Just when it appeared that the purge of Evolutionary Theory from public school systems was all but ‘a slam dunk’, a new scripture-based movement is poised to recapture our faith-based hearts & minds. Yesterday, scienticians from Waterloo University’s Center for Bumptious Adherence, declared that St. Augustine’ canonical theory of Natural Theology was so spurious that they were forced to create a new theory, Intelligent Default.

‘Existence is not progressive, it is regressive’ said Professor Stuart Burgess, a devout chemist from Bristol, who would later add ‘to look anywhere, but towards God, is blasphemous; however, to look directly at God is to perish from shock. The short term benefits of Intelligent Default in the classroom shall allow children to immediately look beyond God, & focus on some detail in the background; thereby, allowing students to have a general idea of what is Going On, while not having them perish from shock. The long term affects will most likely also be good & stuff.’

Secular response to this new theory has been mixed. For example John Ray, Chairman for the Thomas Paine School of the Performing Arts, was quoted in an exclusive telephone interview as saying ‘Dance, dance, dance towards Heaven’s door!’

When asked for an official response, Heaven Press Secretary, St. Thomas Aquinas released this written statement: ‘Now that, my little dancing lambs, is how we do.’

This Is Not A Laundromat Poem

There was fencing on the window,
& through that fencing I saw a man
in a hooded coat fall upon his bottom.
The man said ‘oomph’. His bottom
said nothing. He turned his head to
the left in order to cough. Before he
could cough, he noticed a bough of
organic cherries. From my own seated
position, I saw the man adjust his
seated position, in order to jiggle
his thighs in excitement. That was
about when the man began to execute
a string of flawless somersaults down
the salted sidewalk. He was a hooded
blur of tumbling smiles; he inspired
me to turn to my left. To my left,
I found a bough of Meadow Fresh
dryer sheets. I took a healthy bite
of dryer sheets. I counted up my
remaining pile quarters with the
utmost confidence. To this very day,
my mouth is free of static cling.

The Plugs

I wanted to call our band The Plugs,
but I was also open to Kids In The Dais.

‘Look, Darryl we voted on this already.
If we want anything Dais-related, it is

gonna be Kids Of The Dais, remember?’
I want to be a lumberjack, I shouted.

I was quickly curbed for my outburst;
I voluntarily dropped & gave my 20,

in triplets. ‘The Plugs sure do know
their chords!’ shrieked a muffled blurb.

Before we knew it, our unnamed band
was franticly exploring every crooked

crevasse of Scott’s semi-furnished
garage, all of us eager to identify the

source of our first glowing review.
After much name calling, which

resulted in a vote over the tour slogan
The Blowhard Explosion, we finally

discovered a malnourished SPIN
reporter, lodged behind Scott’s futon.

We nursed this little tyke back to health,
mainly upon a spoon-fed regimen of

Puritan beef gravy & long grain rice.
But before we knew it, our little reporter

could groom himself, eat solid foods,
& even use Arcade Fire as an adjective;

clearly it was time to set our boy free.
The very next rush hour, we walked

down to the nearest bus stop where,
together as a band, we tearfully stuffed

our pride & joy into the Green Bin.
Come see us; we’re The Good Parents.

A Letter to Ally Fleming

Dear Ally,

In response to your query:
‘When you go to the zoo,
do you ever get confused as
to which side of the bars
you're on, & then end up
escaping into the Bat Cave
where the part-time staff
have to poke you with the
business end of a Swiffer
Wetjet until you come down
from the ceiling?’ No. But I
do get confused as to which
ice-creams-on-a-stick are
endangered, & which ice-
creams-on-a-stick are merely
threatened, so that I just
end up contributing so few
dollars to Canada’s Gross
National Product that I
begin to get oddly emotional
while standing beside the
dented sign that cautions
me not to feed the snow
leopards anything that has
been handled by a Polish
person, or may otherwise
contain any carbs.

Sincerely,
Ryan

Maureen The Mink

This poem will appear in the upcoming issue of Misunderstandings Magazine.