Genus, Species and Flavor--

(a poem with pieces missing)

1.
I sit in the park when it is too hot for walking.
Watch the girls pass in their sundresses. Still.
I’ve always prided myself on not being one of those guys
who sits in parks.

3.
Hard pressed to note the differences between
Jackals and Hyenas; thinking hard I remember that
Jackals are part of the dog family, distant cousins
of something you might keep in your house and Hyenas
have the menacing laugh.

Either would scavenge my corpse.

5.
Bulbous, round and pink,
she eats her hot dog as if
giving head.
She even licks the mustard off
with the tip of her tongue, a
girlish giggle and hand over
her mouth, as if to say "little ole me?”

Still, she puts a lot of teeth into it.

-2.
I don’t know the difference between Mammoths and
Mastodons. Genus and species?
Which would fell easier
under pre-dawn man’s spears?
which would feed
a family and for how long?
Did they use mammoth meat for romantic dinners
or did they have smaller animals for that?

23.
Depending how much you believe Al Gore,
the ice caps are melting pretty damn fast.
Depending how much you believe Robert Frost,
this could be the perfect apocalyptic compromise.

I personally can’t wait for the thaw.
I want to see whose bones were trapped
in there, all that time.

3.141 . . .
Late winter
in my darkened room
I photo collage.
Some times I forget how pretty you were,

____________________________________________________________________

this is one I'm still working on. this is version 1.5. it might seem like the pieces are in random order (a la the numbers) but it's actually quite on purpose. I almost cut the last stanza entirely, but decided it worked strong as an ending.
Thoughts?
Drastic changes or improvements will be posted once I'm a little happier with them.

Had a meeting with Stevie today. Basically she told me to keep writing and send her stuff when I had it. Approved my idea (which I stole from Sarah) for a loosely-linked series of shorts. Progress still needs to be made in a serious way if I'm to meet June goals for short story writing.