I.
Polytentacular, it grips
And rends to flinders passing ships.
II.
By covering itself with sand,
The Kraken poses as a Land—
And rises with an awful roar
When hapless sailors come ashore,
Till falling back, it drags them down
To whirl and spin, and fail, and drown.
III.
A dozen years have come and gone
Since when I held the watch at dawn
And through the water clear as air
Saw my own shadow riding there;
And stared into the glassy sea
As jelly eyes stared up at me.
Lily Lake
Loved her snake.
Leroy Lay
Stole it away.
Lucas Lops
Called the cops.
Laura Leaf
Chased the thief.
Lenny Loun
Knocked him down.
Lamia Lake
(That was the snake)
Swallowed him whole.
That’s all.
Down by the hill, or lower down,
The larks and lizards built a town.
They sang for fun and lay in the sun
And life was easy.
Seasons came, and came, and came,
And some were different, some the same;
The flowers grew, and blossomed, and blew,
And life was easy.
But a lark grows bold to stretch its wing
While a lizard sleeps and dreams of spring.
So the larks forgot – what the lizards did not –
That life is easy.
Then they went their ways, no one knew why,
Some to the desert and some to the sky,
With the turning spheres and the passing years,
Like life, so easy.
Continue reading
Old snake
Never stays around long.
He knows someone will tell that story
How he lost his legs.
III.
It is a dragon that swallows the moon.
A dragon delivers the rising sun in its jaws.
Knowing nothing of despair or love,
While its heart remains hidden it cannot be killed.
II.
In the time before men the dragons ruled the air,
Spurning the ground,
Fearing nothing, not even the sea.
Evil by their birth,
They were most noble.
I.
The Chinese dragons have faces like old men
Grow stronger the older they grow
Lie by telling the truth
Can ride the slightest wind to invisible heights
Are beautiful in motion, hideous in repose.
Oh, an Octopus is just the thing
When you’re out of string.
Yes, instead of a ball of twine
An Octopus works fine.
Last Christmas Eve I got a box
Done up in Octopus-knots.
It’s nicely tied — there’s even a bow.
But what’s inside? I still don’t know.
The Octopus
won’t
let
go.
Bag of Anything 