Tuesday 22 January 2013

squirrel hook




i am not necessarily evil. it’s not natural.i helped a squirrel today. it was hobbling around with one paw missing, so i thought i should help it by making a squirrel paw prosthesis. first, though, i had to catch him. i tried to tempt him with chocolate, then nuts, then nutty chocolate and finally chocolaty nuts. eventually i lured him into the house with the promise of vintage david bowie records, which he seemed to like the idea of. while there he insisted, over a cup of bovril and some woodbines , on talking at length (well for him) about the inherent racism of beatrix potter and the price of stamps in relation to mail art (which is big amongst squirrels, which is why they need so many walnuts). i offered to help him with is lack of paw and he said that if i could give him a wire coat-hanger, he would fashion a hook for himself. i did so, and said goodbye. i watched him scamper off.

2 comments:

Stephen Nelson said...

Yea, I like this one. It's funny. I think you could develop this stuff no problem. Jamey Dunham's book The Bible of Lost Pets is good. Animals and famous figures like MM lend themselves to poems like this. It also works well with short, choppy sentences. I look forward to seeing where you go with it...

mike di tomasso said...

thanks. my poetry was evolving towards short sentencing. i'm suprised how easy it is to slip back into this style of poem after years of disjointed abstraction.