roots

a kidney bean

once became lodged

deep inside

my ear canal

 

and i don’t think

i need to remind you

how a sweet polyp

like that

will sprout roots

among the white axons

grow throughout the squid

and drink in salvation

from the brainpan

 

god knows

i’ve tried what i can

even

turned to the

purgative artillery

strong medicine for sure

but

my throat muscles

only strained and expelled

a bulky stool

so gassy

 

and when

the shaman

sat atop me

with his covey of broken clam shells

scraped the flesh from back of

my neck

wouldn’t you know it

the beast only sneered

from the hole and spat

 

so i guess

i’m resigned now

to co-exist with my friend

and no

as you’ve gathered

it’s not a symbiosis

 

but i’ll get by

Reviews

[NoneOfYourBusiness akaK..]

you've a way to flay away the pc prose of modern woes and reimbue it with the gut wrenching tear stained beauty that it IS even in a condition's degenerative dissolution~ you are like the olden wizards of preRome who wandered lands of Dhawos making magik out of pain and suffering and breathing stunning revelatory gem drops into the wrenching fields of mortality~

[Desert Dreamer]

I like beans, not sure if I want one sprouting in my ear, but one never knows, maybe there is much to learn from our legume friends. Neither modern medicine nor the ancient shamanistic knowledge can break the connection between man and bean. A great poem! I think I'll be smiling for a while after reading this.

[Ruth]

This is amazing! You have such talent of making something surreal so heart wrenching! A great combination, this is wonderful, I loved it! xoxo

[roarke]

planting the seeds.... or in this case the "beans" of ideas, sprouting the roots and vines of imagination, existing in spite of the status quo, gestating in defiance, and once you think of the 800 pounds of baked beans getting all rancid and moldy in the cracked crock, you just can't think of anything else.

just wrap surgical gauze around your head like old Vincent.... and quit trading the cow for any more freakin' magical beans.....
yer such a legume.

[zig]

"how a sweet polyp

like that

will sprout roots

among the white axons

grow throughout the squid

and drink in salvation

from the brainpan"

ah, you're way to clever for me. great visuals here, great diction.

i went to mount rushmore several years ago (mostly i go see crazy horse mountain, but sometimes i go to mount rushmore, just for the hell of it), and i saw what appeared to a family of squirrels running in and out of george washinton's ear. i wrote a poem about it... i'll try to find it for ya.

mostly i just want to know how the bean got in your ear. no, wait a minute no, i dont want to know, i can live with the mystery.

[InkSlinger]

When god gives you beans.. you make soup, or burritos..
Otherwise, sounds like someone been squeezing lemons again!

Loved it!!

[Lydia Blackwell]

did you hear about the one who accidentally sprouted a watermelon seed in their lung? it was that or some such thing... i dunno. i like some of the phrasing you chose- "and drink in salvation from the brainpan" being one of them. you are an acquired taste, i do believe. all the same- excellent writing. and clever too.

[arbitrary jane]

a kidney bean, an ideology... it's all parasitic evolution. i love the way you draw from so many fonts. unreservedly, and with poetic shade. i'm drawn in to the tickings and whirrings and the electrochemical mechanism of your skinless dimension.

[Me]

Enjoyed thoroughly.

[Emily B]

I've always heard this is power in the word . . . now I believe it

[bookworm]

omg...you are soooo a biologist....my absolute favorite part.....

and when
the shaman
sat atop me
with his covey of broken clam shells
scraped the flesh from the back of
my neck
wouldn't you know it
the beast only sneered
from the hole and spat

Crap! I wish I wrote that! F'n brilliant.....:)