to catch a poetry bat, perchance to dream

I gave up on tiny slips of haiku. No matter how dreadful, the haiku and the pickles were unsuccessful. My traps remained empty. Flies and dragonflies feasted upon the discarded pickles. I saw the signs of the bad poetry bats everywhere. Teenagers scrabbling in magic marker their hideous protests of love have their messages nibbled off the benches and picnic tables and trees. The tired cliches of poetry of yore, a checkered shade, a leaf falling, a pool of water, all showing the toothmarks of the bad poetry bats.

In the morning, we shall try again, Horatio the Mute and me. We shall bring with usinstead old high school literary magazines, and the strange anthologies created by the nefarious scamsters at poetry.com and other self-published tomes of shame and infamy. We shall drench them for a week in pickle juice from all our empty pickle jars. We shall then try again in the swampy fields and parklands and golf courses.

In the mean time, Biter, our cave squirrel, has started chewing his own tail in frustration. We are building him a dark, secretive cage with no light whatsoever that we will fill with damp rocks. Hopefully, Biter will calm down a little when placed in an area close to his natural habitat.

Dimble is, as always, sleeping, and biding his time for afternoon cups of coffee, and licking crumbs and whipped cream from Horatio's moustache. He bristles adorably in his dreams. His fur all tumbles and sheens in silver. He does not suspect for a moment the spider lurking up to his tiny teeth.

If you will excuse me, I shall put the Snaggletooth Spider back in the cage, and this time I shall find some better locking mechanism than peanut butter. Spiders are surprising in their craftiness.