Morpho Designs

St. Valentine’s Day Mascara

Photo by RBerteig

Ode to a Cornish Hen

Stalking Iris, on my way to St. Ives

Alas, alack! Apparently I am smitten, -

Hiding plainly, in the road lie seven knives.

A trip, a fall, all parts of me are bitten.

Red blood runs free: each blade takes seven hacks.

The puncture wounds cause me to swoon and yet,

My life is spared, saved by a cryptic hen.

From deep within her seven sacks,

The snow white bird retrieves a motley set:

A black kohl pencil plus a styptic pen.

Oh, for a dose of vicodin! O nurse!

With all thoughts of Iris long forgotten,

Euphoria, my new St. Ives perverse,

Take me away to the land of cotton.

Crystallize my swirling perturbations,

Pluck my nervous cord and softly sweetly strum

The cockles of my heart.

Clarify the dripping condensations

As from the mortal coil they come.

When we have done, at last let us depart.

Done at last with narcotic interludes

Foul flights so foreign to my feathered friend!

The diving swoops, the climbs and altitudes:

Reckless endangerment around the bend.

Where perspective embarks on holiday,

Supplanted by paranoid delusions.

Hallucinations hold hostage all thought

And Reason runs away.

Where goodness and light are mere illusions

But where bliss can be borrowed or bought.

No longer shackled by such altered states

I can see you for the blessing you bring.

And through the window I glimpse our true fates -

Certainly, you were not sent here to sing.

Aside from your life-saving measures,

Despite your ministrations and lovin’

What’s destiny if nobody heeds it?

So, get dressed for one of life’s great pleasures:

You’ll be roasted for lunch in the oven.

What’s love but to bite the hen that feeds it?