Poems
by KJ Hannah Greenberg

“Fictional” Critters’ Mutant Eggs

 

It’s not just the volume of communication principles that impact

Social freedoms, but personal creativity’s influence over assorted

Kinds of zooids.

 

On reflection, creatures’ tenias tend to bounce no deficit of stories

Concerned with reaching support during interstellar attacks. Grasp,

Salvos are deadly.

 

So, when lading rocketships, setting instruments to seta, it’s best to

Beseech midshipmen to remain fixed on electronic lateens, nuclear

Velums, alien seeds.

 

The progenies of gelatinous wildebeests forever touch on the degree

Of healing that five-headed hoydens can confer upon spoilt humans,

Also, derelict invaders.

 

 

 

 

 

Onions and Socks

 

 

Grandma’s memory loss didn’t reflect a coof’s mentation, but the sorrowful veracity

Of aging. Her maintaining perennials, else cleaning windows, couldn’t echo her dear

Loves’ wishes. That elder’s memory collectanea, too, chucked aside familial remarks,

Conversations from decades of interstellar experiences. Abruptly, Nana’s heliopause

No longer split cognitions from imagined happenstances.

 

Her dog starved. Her cat died when accidentally bolted in a closet. Meanwhile, she shilly-

Shallied over peeling tomatoes or having them whole. Besides, she couldn’t educe which

Shoe matched which foot, how to zipper dresses, or why soiled laundry went in hampers.

Friends’ phone numbers melted alike April snowflakes. As well, her usual walking course

Became as mystical to her as organic chemistry had been at university.

 

Most disturbing (she had been an English professor) were her tribulations per language.

Vocabularies ran athwart in her head. She made use of “onions” as “undies” when mail

Ordering clothing, confounding her aide, confusing her distributor. Lamenting methods

By which people used words, she fretted, hung about unable to sustain her self-imposed

Mission of enforcing independence and individual accountability.

 

Sometimes, when that elder unintentionally admitted access past her integument, people

Shuddered. There were few temporal/geographic landmarks left within her inner world.

Moreover, minus feedback, that crone’s peripheral reality shifted, embraced alien plants,

Outworlders, atmospheres infused with pinkish dust. Night was day for her, weeks had

No significance. The litterateur remained mute.

 

Occasionally and then increasingly so, she located senses near her sitting room’s exposed

Ceiling bulb as though that light’s reflet could reestablish a stronghold for her victimized

Brain. Yet, that glassy patina, no matter its brilliant surface, fortified those elements long

Enslaved by darknesses that crafted generalizations out of the range of dialectic, similarly

Deflated nous, messed with common sense, reduced practical intelligence.

 

Her personal programme grew more restrictive. She began considering her beloveds as cult

Participants, as abusers. Precious people became addictions, slave masters, Mafia members.

Cringing and crying, she’d turn away from visitors or threaten them with her invisible guns.

The persons able to enter her abode were well-advised to buttress themselves with pillows,

To consume giant spoonfuls of patience, to not cry.

 

 

 

Cat’s Cuddy

 

 

Fur and whiskers came together to organize the hunt.

On board, many, tiny, clawed feet scuddled, arousing

Captain and crew (traps, like poison, had miscarried.)

 

Initially, a local poverty of substantial communication

Kept sailors from noting. Next, irrational fear muffled

Their response. Queen was called to cull those raiders.

 

First, she demanded a cuddy. Anon, whole fish, eyes

Glazed by death, & sweet water (scarce commodity),

Gathered potato sacks for nesting were also exacted.

 

Eventually, after grooming all paws, cleaning her back,

Taking a fortnight worth of naps, she deigned to sniff

Out the intruders, distribute small bodies on all decks.

 

 

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