The Dark Mark

We’ve all committed evil deeds
And longed to tell someone, something
In effort to reduce the weight.

In doing so it seems our souls
Flake off and cling to those
Persons, objects of affection.

Thus pains and hope live on
Inside a heart or surface
Of a prized possession

That will not break
Or age with time but
Rather stay a constant.

For emotions always
Leave their mark and
Seldom are undone.

And so it is, in real-life fairy tale
We’ve made a horcrux
Of our self.

Mine Tokyo Rose

You were misunderstood mine Tokyo Rose
An outsider abroad and still at home
And now it seems your aura flows
Across the long, vast ocean foam.
Caught in the War because of a face
You reached out the only way you knew
Through waves that bounced in open space
To comfort those that sailed and flew.
But it seems the innocent will suffer most
In times of peace as well as war
Thus mixed with other voice-like ghosts
Courts tagged you as a treas'nous whore.

Your husband, your future stolen away
No solace met your Pardon Day.

Gnome Jong Il

Gnome Company; Always on the run
Destiny is the garden's rising sun
Oh Hafrank was born with a flower in his hand
Behind a root he'll make my final stand
That's why they call it gnome company
And you can't deny
Gnome company
Till the day we die
Till the day we die

Announcer: This episode of Gnome Company is brought to you by holiday cheer… the only liquor strong enough to get you through the season.

Hafrank:  I’m so happy we chose to have Thanksgiving on an island off the disputed coast of South Korea this year.

Krista:  North Korea!

Krista hits Hafrank with a chair

Hafrank:  Like I said, disputed.

Nick:  The turkey’s done!

Hafrank:  Yum, this is way better than the assortment of acorns my family ate in the old country.

Krista:  You were bred in captivity, weren’t you?

Hafrank:  I imagine the cage with plastic rocks to be my old country.

Nick:  I think the oven just beeped.

Krista:  You just took the turkey out though.

Nick:  Well, then that could only mean…

Hafrank:  MISSILE!

Nick:  Everybody get in the oven!

Krista:  Hafrank, where are you going?

Hafrank:  I’m grabbing the food.

Krista:  But Kim’s missile is coming right for us!

Hafrank:  If we see God hungry and eat all the good stuff at the heavenly buffet, he’s going to change his mind and send us to hell.

Krista:  True.

Nick:  Get the cranberry sauce!

Krista:  Mashed potatoes!

Missile hits, reducing everything but the oven to a crater; Nick sticks his head out

Nick:  Hafrank, we’ll need the gravy too.

Announcer:  And we’ll right back… when I get paid my holiday bonus.

George W. Bush:  Hello, I betcha ya’all heard about my new book that done come out.  It’s called Decision Points he he he.  And I’m here to tell you it makes for a good stockin stuffer.  You hearin’ that Mom?  They wouldn’t give me a free copy.  So, everyone, especially mom, better go out and get them some of this here litrary gold.  The profits totally won’t go to fund nefarious purposes, like a new war against Iran.  What’s that Cheney, it will?  You didn’t want me to tell them that? Well shit on a stick!

Announcer:  I got enrolled in the jelly club!  Those fucks!

Hafrank:  Ow…

Nick:  Is the gravy ok, Hafrank?

Hafrank:  I fell in it.

Nick:  But, it’s still good, right?

Hafrank:  If you like it off my ass.

Nick:  Beggars can’t be choosers, scrape it off!

Krista:  Wait, Nick… maybe we should find out who is responsible for the attack.

Nick:  That sounds like talk from someone who’s not hungry anymore.  Is that… a whole turkey you’re snarfing?

Krista:  Maybe.

Nick:  You can’t say maybe when you’re still eating the evidence!

Hafrank:  Ow…

Nick:  Stop your bellyaching Hafrank!

Hafrank:  I think a gravyboat is lodged in my kidney.

Nick:  Then sail it out!

Krista:  You should tend to his wounds, Nick.

Nick:  Oh all right, I guess I better… hey, you’re eating the casserole now!

Krista:  I thought the suffering of a loved one would be a good distraction for you.

Nick:  Well, you’re wrong.

Hafrank:  Missile…

Nick:  Yes, Hafrank, we’ve already determined that.

Hafrank:  Other, Missile…

Nick:  Everyone back in the oven!

Krista:  Hafrank, be a dear and get the champagne.

Hafrank:  But…

John Travolta:  Hey!  How dare you make the cute gnome take all the punches.  That’s my job!

John Travolta puts Hafrank in the oven with a candy cane; Krista steals it

John Travolta:  Now, bring me all you got missile!

Missile hits John in the crotch

John Travolta:  Ow… perhaps a bit less of all you got…

Hafrank sticks his head out

Hafrank:  This missile says South Korea.

Nick:  So, they’re bombing themselves?

Krista:  That makes no sense.

Nick:  It’s common in history for one side to feign hostility.

Krista:  There’s no such thing as history.

Nick:  Well… damn.

Hafrank:  I think you need to see both sides Nick.

Nick:  How so?

Hafrank:  South Korea didn’t do this on purpose.  There’s just naturally at any given time a bunch of missiles flying back and forth.  It’s been that way for fifty years.

Ben Ditmars:  Hafrank, Nick your histories are both off the mark.  There’s a frequency of testing and drills to prepare for war that in itself forces tensions closer to war.  The fact that there is no discernible way to settle border disputes only heightens a long-brewing sense of paranoia.

Krista:  I like my answer better.

Nick:  Yeah, I’m going with Krista.  Her’s is easier to get.

Hafrank:  Here’s to no history!

Krista:  Oh, Hafrank!

Ben Ditmars:  But you just saying there's no history makes Krista's comment void!

Krista:  Nah, that's just the past.  History is when a bunch of white-wigged Romans get on their Trojan horses and tear down the Berlin Wall.  Also, something about a fat man sitting on Nagasaki.  He was sumo or something.

Ben Ditmars: You are beyond help, child.

Krista:  To infinity and beyond!

Hafrank:  I love Toy Story! Let's go watch!

Ben: Oh, Hafrank. And Buzz.

A Touching Fable

I’d like to write a touching fable
Where characters might grow
Above God-given labels.

The protagonist could work in stables
Sifting dirtied hay out by the row –
I’d like to write a touching fable.

His love interest, Jan, will wait on tables
In the South, when thrived Jim Crow
Above God-given labels.

Her skin would be a lovely sable,
As each day seemed a harsh tableaux –
I’d like to write a touching fable.

Together they would live like Abel
Through hate and segregation’s throes,
Above God-given labels.

Years would pass and wind would blow
But the candle of their love remained to glow;
I’d like to write a touching fable
Above God-given labels.

Possibilities

I’d slit my wrists
If there was any blood
Left in my veins.

I’d sink and drown
Within the tub
But my lungs seized up
So long ago and are
As barren as my heart
Which beats enough to mock
But not sustain a life.

I’d leap off a local bridge –
Though I’ve been falling
For some time inside
My mind –
And taste the salt,
A sweet release if
Gravity would but
Cooperate in kind.

I’d aim the pistol
Up inside my mouth
To blow my brains
From out my skull
But it happens everyday
Without a trigger.

I’d wait for time to
Slowly work, yet odds are
I would live forever.

9

Isn’t it ironic how the earth

Is like the other Nine?

Mercury, a side of barren flame;

The opposing end of ice?

Venus with an atmosphere so thick

That cool breeze will seldom make it through?

Frigid, dusty Mars with evidence of life

Yet never any solid proof?

Jupiter a ball of gas with storms

That border on the ageless?

Saturn, with debris and moons

Clashing, warring in a spiral haze?

Uranus, poisonous and dim

An ice giant, king of frozen gloom?

Neptune tinted blue from methane gas

And seeming often melancholy?

Pluto, a mere ball of ice with moons,

Cast off in the scheme of things?

I, Midas

I touched an oak twig and stone
One day to see them turn to gold.

The curse, this Midas touch
However was not new.

Everything throughout my life –
Had become a statue in some way.

The emptiness of gold
Was evident in all relationships.

My hands touched friends, romantic interests
And they went away.

My family I embraced but
To have them disappear.

Their gilded shines remained, of course
In memories as if they were the twig and stone –

But that is all they are,
All they are.