Kirsty's Small Dinosaur Support Group (IFT)

[Mimic_Octopus]

Crow Process III
(with apologies to Ted Hughes)

[Mimic_Octopus]

Ubume

Smell my blood goodwife
and bolt the door I am
a horror where this morning I bloomed
as fine as an army and began to birth
began but no more now I am my child’s army
dying so mercy and take the girl off me
get her a mask and a cup of clean water
make her your daughter for the days you have
left that I may fall down on the death speckled earth
and soak up contaminants
make the land right for her
ah there we go
I hear you crying, trying to play dead
behind your black market sofa
thought as much
you think me weaker
but I can hammer a war tattoo
and you are my conscript so beg me to go
and leave you in peace please
to drag my rags up the path
oh yes do
beg me to trail
redly off up the road
but I’m here
monstrous
nothing if not a mother.

[Mimic_Octopus]

A run at the fence

Hickory, get low.
We must wind ourselves tight.
Curl forward, crunch rib into rib.
Squash each vertebra onto its neighbour.
Tense the hamstrings.
Squint the eyes.
Don’t see the bricks as high as a cathedral.
See only the light beyond their razor frill.
Slow your heart.
Feel yourself disappear.
That’s it. Get low.
Then go.

[Mimic_Octopus]

Panda

“I’m a bad guy, so I don’t look at my past”
Panda, Polar Bear’s Cafe

Panda is tired. A class of fifth-graders came by the zoo today. He broke his midday loll-and-chomp to roll around, do the hula in his tractor tyre, slide tail-to-tummy down the slide with Mr Full-Time. Only five children screamed that he was cute. One was sad but since he wasn’t cute, Panda is not in the least surprised. Being a panda is a grind sometimes. A whole two days each week being yourself. He supposes the other ones knew he was cute. Not everybody says what they feel. He does. He can tell you how often he has been adored. It is thousands. But the bad stuff, that’s got no place in his brain, the same way his gut handles only one plant. Did he tell a gloomy penguin they were boring? Maybe. Did he shove a lovesick florist backwards into a rack of roses? Possibly. What day is it?

Panda opens the cafe door.
Spring flowers on the counter.
He orders a faceful of bamboo.

[Mimic_Octopus]

Penguin

“Such violent, yet such careful, work.”
Penguin, Polar Bear’s Cafe




Penguin would rather face a pod of orcas than himself. He grooms at his neat little wetsuit and despairs and orders another mocha. Out across town there is a girl selling bread. A penguin girl, who does not know how he drinks. How he jitters himself scarlet over what he dreams of her. If only he were a grizzly bear, turning up on a hog bike to sching away trouble. Bad but good-bad, and broad as a stormcloud. Could she love, do you think, across species divides? Penguin has always admired the bear. His hereness, his hairness, that undeniable death about him. Not to mention his knack with salmon. Miss P would be putty before such a fisherman, surely. Not for her some short-legged stammerer. He should give up and waddle back to Antarctica. Polar Bear, where is that mocha?

Penguin walks past the bakery.
A girl-bird parcels new-year mochi,
her eyes lost among black feathers.

[Mimic_Octopus]

Mr Full-time Panda

“Plastic models are a man’s passion.”
Mr Full-time Panda, Polar Bear’s Cafe.


When he is not being a full-time panda, and when he is being a full-time panda, Mr Full-time Panda is hunched like a vampire, slipping tissues into neat little packs. His paws being the size of plates, this is no sniff. His cubs are growing. His wife is growing. He winds up the keeper for conversation. He prods his workmate into extra service. The children who come call him Mr Panda, not Mr Full-time, Full-time or You. When each wave passes and they’re off to the zebras, he pulls out the other box, that earns him no money. An army of tiny plastic robots. From under the slide, where he’s taped it, he takes a bundle of paints and brushes. His wife does not know he kept any. It has been busy today. Service, service. Sometimes he chants it just to sleep.

The train steams in summer.
A panda boards in silence.
There is no announcement.

[Mimic_Octopus]

Llama

“I wonder if love clouds the eyes of animals too?”
Llama, Polar Bear’s Cafe


It is not for Llama to shout up for the blossoms others miss. So many couples pass him on the way to Panda Corner. They have a softness to them, like melting chocolate. Is it the same for Sloth or Tortoise, or even poor anxious Penguin? Are they mechanical, such animals? Bring in the bouquet of pheromones, Zookeeper. Watch them grow nervous and eager to please, in love with a ghost-llama, spirit-sloth, something. Llama has too much time on his hooves. Nobody stops to take in his thick coat, his thick drag lashes, his Dalai Lama calm. What is neither camel, nor sheep, nor alpaca? A beast between worlds where the needle stuck. But even he knows what love is like. It is the tip-tail of a summer breeze combing the hairs of his ears.

Light rain on the llama shelter.
Visitors share umbrellas.
Droplets catch on wool.

[Mimic_Octopus]

Bonus Poem: Polar Bear

“And then he left, like a storm.”
Polar Bear, Polar Bear’s Cafe


The icebear cleans dishes after hours. It is a time for reflection. Grizzly is in hibernation. That’s a long stretch without his leather and snarl. Perhaps in the spring they can go fishing together. The teacups bubble as they sink through the bowl, and picture comes to Polar Bear. Two cubs, rolling on a hilly outcrop: one white as ocean foam; the other the brown of a well-done steak. Steak. Tomorrow’s specials, of course. He dries his paws and picks up the chalk. The parfaits are shifting. The otters like the shaved ice. Lunch pasta seems to walk out by itself. He dries the last saucer and unties his apron. Big dumb bear with his biker bar. Here is a brother, says Polar Bear. Rage and pride and unstoppable friendship. Life with a burning heart.

Mild August night.
Polar Bear eases into his hammock.
Stretches. Mouths a name.

[Crashed_Pilot]

Aaaaaaah, these are great!

[Donner]

I second that! I love these!

[Julie]

The sounds in "The Last Time You Lived Here" are outstanding.

"at servitude beyond the body. Silk
round the body of a sweating stranger."

!! Great stuff.

"I really believed in my bulk and matting."

!!


The bear/penguin/llama/bear poems are amazing. I'm speechless, but still typing.

(And the last made me think of "We Bare Bears" which delights me.)

[Tony Hoffman]

Good stuff here, Kirsty. I particularly like the zoo prose-poems at the end. But I think my favorite is Crow Process II.
Tony