Trio
Vitality
Life is other life eager
to eat you, poison you,
fuck you, capture you,
or simply kill you.
The endocrine thrill
is in your effort
to avoid all this.
As when, at the weekly
meeting at the office,
it's your turn to assert
your value to the group.
Dandelion's Revenge
With green and silent industry, the plants
convert our shit to fiber, food and breath.
We convert their habitats
to rooftops and parking lots.
Will they someday take a sentient branch,
evolve assertive roots and tendrils and send
them in through cracks to choke us as we sleep?
Lepidoptery
I catch them if I can
when they flutter up
to visible branches from
impenetrable dark underneath.
I find their beauties irresistible
though others, seeing them
penned under glass,
wonder why I bother
catching them at all-
they are so ordinary,
brown, and dull.
Life is other life eager
to eat you, poison you,
fuck you, capture you,
or simply kill you.
The endocrine thrill
is in your effort
to avoid all this.
As when, at the weekly
meeting at the office,
it's your turn to assert
your value to the group.
Dandelion's Revenge
With green and silent industry, the plants
convert our shit to fiber, food and breath.
We convert their habitats
to rooftops and parking lots.
Will they someday take a sentient branch,
evolve assertive roots and tendrils and send
them in through cracks to choke us as we sleep?
Lepidoptery
I catch them if I can
when they flutter up
to visible branches from
impenetrable dark underneath.
I find their beauties irresistible
though others, seeing them
penned under glass,
wonder why I bother
catching them at all-
they are so ordinary,
brown, and dull.
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Other stories by Gary Hardaway
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Love Dandelion's Revenge. Fave*.
We, the living. *
"The endocrine thrill . . . "
All three are strong. Especially like #1.*
Agree with Gloria - Dandelion's Revenge is triffid. I mean, terrific.
Three good ones, Gary. *
We convert their habitats
to rooftops and parking lots.
I haven't read the other comments, because I don't want them to influence me. I love the first one, which I read as the jungle of office life, from which I am mercifully retired. I love the dandelion one, because...I've always been partial to them. I don't so much like the butterfly one, because I'm a sentimentalist. Now, to fave and then see what the others have said! *
I like Neil's comment best. My first wife used to dread the wild lettuce in the side yard I never mowed. The plants grew six feet tall and looked like Triffids.
Great contrasts -
"I find their beauties irresistible
though others, seeing them
penned under glass,
wonder why I bother"
- throughout the set. Good work, Gary.
All three are strong. I liked the first one best." at the weekly
meeting at the office,
it's your turn to assert."*
Some great lines in here, Gary. Nice set *
I will print out number one and put it up where I work. The next time I am in a meeting where we "go around the table and take turns talking about blah blah blah" I will stand and read your poem. *