65
Harriotte
Glinting, gleaming, glowing eyes that see the world through sound and touch,
knobbled, knotted, gnarled hands that swing a cane, not as a crutch
but as a percussive surprise for tapping beats on makeshift drums
or finding giant outdoor urns to thrust her face inside and hum.
She seeks the resonating tone and lingers with musical glee,
and when she stops the note continues in the air echoically.
And in the dark two glassy paintings, mottled blue like stormy seas,
emit a light that's joy-sustaining and observe invisibly.

64
Single serving popping penes,
tensive turgid whizzing wienies,
flying free like green Houdinis,
spraying seeds from burst zucchinis.

Seedpods explode like grenades,
pressure pulse from valve cascades
launching pips like cannonades
from plant rubbing escapades.

63
MantisBones MantisSerenade FoodBugs BugsMug
https://www.instagram.com/miss.mantis/

A miniature sculptor
of moderate size,
of entomic dresses
and floral thigh-highs,
of possums and blossoms,
communing raccoons,
and curated shades of
purples and maroons.
And off in the corner
under picture frames
her husband is working 
'til time for boardgames.

A cool summer evening on top of the hill,
we sit in their condo and quietly chill.
Tip-tapping of fingers, the scratch of my pen,
a peacefulness lingers among us, and then
she offers me chocolate with hazelnut bits
and gathers her laptop and blanket and sits
on the other sofa with her cup of tea,
and says, 😫 "Too much liquid! Now I have to pee!"

And each exposed surface is covered in bugs.
There are bugs in the windows
and bugs on the rugs
and bugs on the shelves
and bugs on the wall
and bugs in the stairwell
and bugs in the hall
and bugs in glass cases
and bugs on the floor
and, let's not forget,
there are bugs on the door
and bugs on the spoons
and bugs on the mugs
and bugs wearing costumes
and bugs giving hugs.

And twining vines line every wall of the room,
with bats, skulls, and ravens like a gothy tomb,
and fabulous fabrics fresh from her dad's loom,
and crêpe paper flowers in permanent bloom

where packed cozy comfort leaves no space for gloom.

62
Mushrooms
Dainty mushrooms keep growing in my sage.
Slim stalks come of age, rampage, wage war across a soiled stage.

I pull them out but they just...come right back.
Baby umbrellas bushwhack, toxic non-snacks counter-attack.

Each day I spot more and pluck them gently.
Consequently they rise, intently, but placed differently.

Movement makes me think they spawn from below.
Tendrils grow, burrow, first slow then whoa, to fruit a white chapeau.

Maybe I should water the planter less?
I guess, if pressed, I should decompress, suppress stress, and assess.

61
2039
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

Old friend has a feed reader he wrote himself
that he runs to read these, not one off the shelf.
He says that my choice of dates is problematic;
"unix epoch plus `i` days", too acrobatic.
He doesn't get signals for posts in the past,
so no entry updates until I've amassed
a series of poems a thousand times twenty.
But only by cheating could I reach that many,
so, what if, instead, I change the dating scheme
to be in the future but with the same theme?
It certainly works, but, he laughs with concern,
"That plan sounds like you want to watch the world burn."

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