Michael Mayhew's Shared Poems

There once was an Arctic ecdysiast
Who found that her job was the freeziest
So she bought a fur coat
Made of weasels and stoats
And got a new job as a fleeciest

I took my daughter
To the graveyard
On a day without funerals
She totted up
The spans of the dead
From their epitaphs
Then clambered an oak
Twenty feet above the ground

My heart thumped
A poem called
"More Years Gone
Then Remain"
And the crows
Gabbled and cawed

My daughter and I
Built a graveyard
In the yard
With gauze props
Styrofoam and
Black lights
I clambered up our oak
Twenty feet above the ground
And clutched the bark
Till my muscles
Knotted

My heart banged a
Measure called
"You Are Fragile
As A Mouse"
And my Girl cawed
Back at the crows

This morning I saw
Someone thrashing
In the road
A mouse
Mortally damaged
But struggling still
One by one with
Avarice in their
Oil drop eyes
Crows landed
I drove around
Glad my daughter was
At school

My heart sang a
Dirge called
"You Really Could
Do More"
And the crows
Circled up to
Finish things

If you go to the dog park
On a 100 degree afternoon

And open the lid of the
Metal trashcan, which
Sits in the sun
All day

The stench of a dozen
Little bags of
Fermenting dog crap
Will smack you across
The snout like a hot,
Wet washcloth of decay

By god!
The pong of it
Is unnatural

Or is it?

For what could be more natural
Then the end result of digestion?

All creatures eat and excrete
Poops stinks and
Flies feast

It's natural
But on the
Other, other hand...

The plastic baggies,
The sun roasted can,
The sheer concentration of crap
In one place
Is less so

It's rather like humanity

We staggered from the forest
Just a small tribe of
Clever mammals
But now

With our metal can cars
Our poured stone cities
Our plastic refuse

The sheer concentration
Of humans
On one, small
Overheated planet

By god!
The pong of us
Is unnatural

What a difference a fluffy tail makes!

Why just the other day
The wife and I stood watching as you
Scampered through our garden
Cutely bit through the stem
Of a large sunflower
And adorably dragged it home to eat

Much as you have done with our
plums, figs and oranges
Whose half-eaten corpses
You then pushed out of the
Tree onto the hood of my car —
Sploosh-plonk! Ruining the
Paint and littering the yard

Stupid squirrels!
I have murdered your cousins
For far lesser crimes
Crossing the threshold
Into the space where we live
Is a Capital Offense —
At least when you do it
In the dark of night
Sporting a scaly tail

But a fluffy tail, big brown eyes,
And daytime habits are
Keys to the lock of human tolerance

Why just last night my wife
Brought in from the garden
The most luscious
Momotaro Tomato —
Or at least the half
Which your gnawing had left —
Bleeding and gouged
Like the back half of a
Seal after the shark is finished

We frowned and then, with a
Shrug, sliced off the ragged edges
And used the rest in our
Pasta.

"There's enough for
All of us," I said.

"Stupid squirrels," she said.

Stupid squirrels.

Napili Bay
And all its blues
From teal to cobalt
To indigo
Is a poem

The gecko’s
Upside down dash
To wrest a moth
From the air
Is a poem

The nearly naked
People on the beach
Young and supple
Flabby and flaccid
Each and every one
Is a poem

My daughter’s hand in my hand
Ice cream sticky on a
Muggy afternoon
Is a poem

The gentle breathing
Of my love in bed
Scarcely heard
Above the surf
Is a poem

Why even this handful
Of black bones
On white linen
Is a poem