Spying eyes

In the muddy crevice under old bottle caps

the fluffy entrails of a forgotten teddy bear

strings of off-white dental floss and

the worn velvet box holding a tarnished golden ring

the red eyes peek out at the world

seeing the boys with their sharp sticks

hacking and chopping and coughing

pillaging for anything redeemable

in this stained, rotting welt on the crust

not knowing if they’ll have enough to buy dinner

or become the dinner of something else

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Rats

After a conversation between Stephen King and George R. R. Martin

 

Can you feel the paws in your throat

fur on your upper palate?

Poe with his Deus Ex Machina

gave me a rat, too.

A rat that morphed me, studious mouse, into top cat.

The Long March

One, two, one two.

 

Line by line,

side by side,

up the steep mountain path

following the piper’s march.

 

One, two, one, two.

 

Rock and stone,

wind and rain.

Soon we’ll reach the river,

He doesn’t care if we shiver.

 

One, two, one, two.

 

Unable to stop.

Unable to think.

Unable to breathe.

 

One, two, one, two.

 

All because the villagers;

our family, our kin;

refused to pay the price

that was owed

to him.