preparing for winter

i.
On the cracked and ravaged sidewalk,
the concrete knolls barely clinging
to the tops of angry tree roots
An army of ants scurries about,
preparing for winter
among ocher autumn leaves.
Hopping over this pebble,
that chunk of moss
creeping through up
through the crevice.
One ant stares up at the trees,
those shining beacons of
a rarely pondered heaven
by relativity.
They're alive now
with the screaming of noises
The ant can't begin to comprehend.

ii.
In the trees, the warfare of the cicadas
is in full bore.
The symphony of their machine gunning timbals
and the timpani of tossed acorns.
Leaves caught in the crossfire
drift gently down.
Three cicadas in a burl foxhole,
the first firing rounds of ammunition
and expletives.
the second screaming commands to
unseen cicadas hidden thin-veiled
behind the dying leaves.
The third holding his head down,
sobbing for his mother
as bullets chip away at bark, leaf and nut.
The second screams at him to fire his weapon.
He jumps up just in time to catch
an enemy bullet in the exoskeleton
and fall.
He does not drift gently down.

iii.
Below, the ant sees something
falling fast between the leaves.
He only just avoids being crushed.
Hiding behind a nearby hunk of rock,
he notices the rush of green muck spilling
out of the creature onto the concrete,
the gossamer wings flapping
with quickly-sapping strength.
The blinking, fading black eyes
filled with fear.
The ant cannot move.
He remains at rest, staring
like an unsure David
at this unknown Goliath
and his strange portent
from the heavens.

iv.
The third cicada, falling fast
but fading slowly. Memories flicker
between shafts of light,
cutting this way and that, through the
palisade cells of the fluttering leaves
illuminating maps to
unwandered territories.
A vision of his mother now,
his countless brothers and sisters.
Another blade of light.
His mother's eyes obscured,
the brightness is almost too much to bear.
A thousand eggs burrowed in bark,
a beam caresses him.
Another taunting map.
He knows what should be coming now,
and yet he is forever waiting
for this pain
to cease.

Letters of Complaint

Dear Port Authority of Allegheny County: I have no problems paying taxes. As Oliver Wendell Holmes, a republican, no less, once wrote "I like paying taxes. With them, I buy civilization."

What I DO have a problem with, is that having paid those taxes, I expect some moderate degree of acceptable social services for them. I like libraries. I like the Postal service. But I LOVE public transit. I do not have a car. So I NEED the aforementioned public transit. As a disabled American, it makes my life easier. In fact, as a disabled American, you can bet that reliable service will keep me from invoking rights afforded me from the Americans with Disabilities Act, and suing the Port Authority of Allegheny County.

According to your website, the 64A bus is scheduled to arrive at 11:12 PM, and 12:02 AM at the corner of Murray and Forbes. Why it is only scheduled to come ONCE EVERY 50 MINUTES is beyond me. I'll assume that it's a funding issue. Either way, this evening, I waited at the aforementioned station for over an hour, and no 64A bus arrived. And this is not the only time I've been forced to wait OVER AN HOUR for the 64A bus. In fact, it's probably the 3rd time. The funny thing is, the other buses seem to run on a decently reliable schedule. But the 64A seems to be an anomaly akin to a midget without a head. I was forced, in my frustration with your chronologically challenged bus, to call a cab. As an avowed socialist, this made me sad. I'd rather pay taxes and get reliable bus service. I'm put off when my taxes go toward a bus that seems to have no concept of space or time.

Please do not make me lose faith in public works. Just pass a stupid bond measure, or yell at somebody, and get the 64A bus to run on schedule. That's all I want.

Sincerely,

Matthew J. Hall

PS: While we're on the subject, your website won't let me submit a complaint without a vehicle number or an operator number. This is clearly silly, since there was NO BUS FOR ME TO RIDE.

S.B. Redux

A herd of minotaurs comes trouncing into the city,
moving slow but steady, with human grace and bovine girth,
grabbing the citizenry, charging at bums,
heads lowered, nostrils flaring,
horns ripping homeless flesh from homeless bone.
They ransacked a local Albertson's,
collecting every milk product they could find:
cheeses, yogurts, even the dehydated stuff,
making low furious noises,
mixtures of moos and wails of anguish.
They just stomped all of the goat
and sheep's cheeses on the linoleum,
grunting angrily.
Eventually they headed east,
grazing their way
over the mountains to Tillamook,
where they took to standing at the gates of pastures,
whistling obscenely at the cows,
a dangerous look of sex lingering in their eyes.
But their cow-calls were all for naught,
the unknowing women just absently chewed on grass, and stank mightily.
In a few days, the minotaurs, angry and unsated,
invaded the factory, and confiscated
every last beefstick and bag of squeaky-cheese,
and smashed up all of the expensive machinery,
and became bloated and fat and sad from all
of the ice cream they inhaled.
They were especially disappointed by one called "Brown Cow."
Finally, sighing with great man-beast malaise,
they abandoned their womenfolk's breastmilk,
each chopped off their left horn
and disappeared into the hills,
like great, sexually mistaken Amazons.

Cord

As I
Trace my finger down her spine
the world slowly dissolves to light
every rock,
sinew of thousand year trees,
orange peel, idea,
(in your dreaming,
I know)
love itself.

My fingers on
cervical vertebrae.
her bones are mountains
explored by my digits
Who leave flags to mark
their affection.
(Mine, if only during slumber)

Down to
Thoracic Vertebrae--
Not to be confused
with Jurassic vertebrae--
Though
in creaking
they almost seem
to roar against
my careful excavations
of tender fossils
telling tales
of their demise.
(My fingers tremble)

To the Lumbar Vertera

(I can almost sense
you waking now,
soft intervals of breath.
Hold.
Be at peace.)

To your Sacrum and Coccyx

(Your sharp inhaling.
Let me bother you no more.)

Suburban Elegy III

Last week
I walked past
plastic-lined homes
to a wetlands reserve,
where I cursed god,
and my loneliness
and felt my Anger almost
claw itself out of my tired muscles
as I screamed, smashing
a branch against its tree,
while my Sadness sat
nearby on a log,
looking on in almost
scientific curiosity.

Only days ago
a newly unemployed father
walked his two children past
those plastic-lined homes
to the wetlands reserve.
He was probably near the same
place I had been.
the boy in second grade,
the little girl in kindergarten.
He shot them there,
one in the stomach,
the other in the head,
before blowing a hole in his own.

Near the place I felt so angry
about things I can't even
remember now,
the place
where his daughter
must have felt glee
in the mid-morning sunshine,
about finally learning
the mysteries of the letter Z.
Where his son must have
grown restless in
waiting for summer,
but still his heart
almost shook
at the thought
of all the things
he had yet to learn.

Like forgiveness.

Old work rediscovered

Production Meetings for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Producer One: Who can we get to close out the movie with an inspirational pop song linking the Magical world of Narnia to 1940s London?
Producer Two: OMG, we like, sooo need to get Regina Spektor?
Producer Three: Doesn't she write songs about manic-depressive women and drug abuse?
Producer Four: God, it's Perfect.

---

Screenwriter One: So, after everything is done, and the human soldiers are slaughtered wholesale by a veritable freakshow of mythical creatures they (the humans) have been told don't exist slash (/) are evil, Caspian is crowned king and the humans, (who have lost their sons and husbands to the Narnians, who themselves were also slaughtered by those very same soldiers) join hands and experience totally perfect racial integration.
Screenwriter Two: Exactly.
Producer One: Wow. That is so true to life. This is why you fellas are in the movie biz.

---

Director: Right, even though it's his land of Narnia, filled with loyal Narnians who love him and are being ruthlessly murdered by an oppressive force as they attempt to fight for their land and freedom, Aslan (Remember guys, this is All-E-Gory, he's not actually Aslaaaan...), well, Aslan refuses to come help them until the Pevensie children blindly go looking for him in the middle of a forest, and then he gets angry and makes them apologize for not blindly following him earlier. Only then does he stop the genocide being committed upon his people.
Screenwriter One: C.S. Lewis was such a visionary.
Director: Guys, I'm so proud of you, this is really going to resonate with Christian audiences and help kids come to love 'Aslan' and want him in their hearts. Because they should. If not, they're going to burn in hell and regret it FOREVER.

(Meanwhile, outside in the hall:)

Random Eavesdropper One: Golly-Gee-Willikers, I never thought of it like that. I certainly don't want to burn in hell! Thanks, C.S. Lewis, you are the bee's knees!
Random Eavesdropper Two: Man, why didn't I learn from the FIRST movie?

(He runs to the nearest restroom to look at himself in a mirror, sobbing and smashing his face against it.)

Random Eavesdropper Two: STUPID FAT COW! WHY CAN'T YOU LOVE ASLAN! LOVEASLANLOVEASLANLOVEASLAN YOU FUCKING FREAK! YOU PATHETIC FAILURE!!!! I SHOULD JUST CUT MYSELF! I'M NOT WORTHY OF ASLAN'S LOVE!
(He picks up a shard of mirror glass. There is blood everywhere.)

---

Director: Also, even though its not anywhere in the book, since Susan Pevensie is like twelve and Caspian is like eighteen, we should let them have a fling. If Warren Jeffs can do it, then by golly, SO CAN WE!

---

(In the theatre, after the first showing:)

Audience Member: The film on my teeth after a three-day drunk has more cinematic value than what we just watched.

Pioneers

The Starbucks cup informs me
that I'm a Pioneer in using recycled cups.
My mind floods with images
of the nearish future,
Where kids in silly outfits
get out of a flying bus,

heading to a museum devoted to Pioneers.
One room just for Lewis and Clark,
They press their faces against the glass of
Dioramas depicting men in raccoon hats,
huddled over a fire in the Rockies,
their plastic fingers tinged blue
for effect.

Another room devoted
to the rest of the settling of the West,
Filled with photos of men and women
in front of Conestogas, and off to the left,
the graves of babies dead from Typhoid.

And to another room, where they enter
one of those old-timey Atlantis Shuttles,
and read a copy of the speech Nixon would have given
if their shuttle exploded up in the atmosphere,
or their landing vehicle couldn't take off,
leaving Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to
die on the cold moon, all alone.

Lastly, to a room devoted to We,
the Pioneering Starbucks customer,
who braved $3.95 and the price of gas
for a cup of sludgy sugar.
And their teacher laughs and says
"Luckily, these pioneers never suffered a scalping."