roots

a kidney bean

once became lodged

deep inside

my ear canal

 

and i don’t think

i need to remind you

how a sweet polyp

like that

will sprout roots

among the white axons

grow throughout the squid

and drink in salvation

from the brainpan

 

god knows

i’ve tried what i can

even

turned to the

purgative artillery

strong medicine for sure

but

my throat muscles

only strained and expelled

a bulky stool

so gassy

 

and when

the shaman

sat atop me

with his covey of broken clam shells

scraped the flesh from back of

my neck

wouldn’t you know it

the beast only sneered

from the hole and spat

 

so i guess

i’m resigned now

to co-exist with my friend

and no

as you’ve gathered

it’s not a symbiosis

 

but i’ll get by

Reviews

[NoneOfYourBusiness akaK..]

you've a way to flay away the pc prose of modern woes and reimbue it with the gut wrenching tear stained beauty that it IS even in a condition's degenerative dissolution~ you are like the olden wizards of preRome who wandered lands of Dhawos making magik out of pain and suffering and breathing stunning revelatory gem drops into the wrenching fields of mortality~

[zig]

"how a sweet polyp

like that

will sprout roots

among the white axons

grow throughout the squid

and drink in salvation

from the brainpan"

ah, you're way to clever for me. great visuals here, great diction.

i went to mount rushmore several years ago (mostly i go see crazy horse mountain, but sometimes i go to mount rushmore, just for the hell of it), and i saw what appeared to a family of squirrels running in and out of george washinton's ear. i wrote a poem about it... i'll try to find it for ya.

mostly i just want to know how the bean got in your ear. no, wait a minute no, i dont want to know, i can live with the mystery.

[InkSlinger]

When god gives you beans.. you make soup, or burritos..
Otherwise, sounds like someone been squeezing lemons again!

Loved it!!

[Lydia Blackwell]

did you hear about the one who accidentally sprouted a watermelon seed in their lung? it was that or some such thing... i dunno. i like some of the phrasing you chose- "and drink in salvation from the brainpan" being one of them. you are an acquired taste, i do believe. all the same- excellent writing. and clever too.

[arbitrary jane]

a kidney bean, an ideology... it's all parasitic evolution. i love the way you draw from so many fonts. unreservedly, and with poetic shade. i'm drawn in to the tickings and whirrings and the electrochemical mechanism of your skinless dimension.

[Me]

Enjoyed thoroughly.

[Emily B]

I've always heard this is power in the word . . . now I believe it

[bookworm]

omg...you are soooo a biologist....my absolute favorite part.....

and when
the shaman
sat atop me
with his covey of broken clam shells
scraped the flesh from the back of
my neck
wouldn't you know it
the beast only sneered
from the hole and spat

Crap! I wish I wrote that! F'n brilliant.....:)

[.]

thank your lucky stars it wasn't a broad bean..then you would have been in trouble :)

[asdarkeyesclose]

'the beast only sneered
from the hole and spat'

i took this to mean life is not always the way that you want it- the kidney bean an image of all those things that get in the way. a truly hideous thought!

[Nobody.]

:) lol. sounds painful.

I'm picturing a thousand ugly realities that this mtaphor might fit. All of them are interesring....as Mr. Ed said: funny and scary all at once. What a lovely mixed drink.

Cheers!