Sharp As A Tack
Self help insult books are on the rise
Since researchers discovered
the severely critical remain
sharp as a tack into old age;
alzheimers thwarted
with withering stares.
senile freak of a septogenarian
Go drool yourself a pool and drown in it.
Perfection striving parents can now protect against soft plum minds,
stomp out the mush of acceptance,
Buck up pansy boy, and tell your piggy friends to get back to their sty.
and insure the long, mentally alert life of their children.
That’s right keep on smiling, beneficent shit for brains.
Having a Divine Time
Creatures Beware!
You’re in mortal danger from your immoral living.
Look at the honeybee—smote by God with plague.
They brought it on themselves centering hives
Around gigantic queens copulating with male after male.
God will not tolerate such outlandish promiscuity.
If that means the end of honey, pollination and fruit, so be it.
We’ve been studying the field reports
We know about you lesbian koalas and Laysan albatrosses,
Gay bottlenose dolphins and bearded vultures.
His grand plan is one male to one female and ALL aberrations
Will feel the force of his wrath. Male on male
Dog humping will no longer be allowed. That’s not
Proper for man’s best friend! We’re calling the pound or destroying
You ourselves: keep God’s green earth pure for our children.
We the devout are putting field crickets, frogs, and polecats on notice.
If you continue to create families of one female to many men
Expect to be hunted down. Polygamous walrus and lions, you
May have fooled Lewis Carroll and C. S. Lewis, but we see
You for what you are. Two by two Noah let you aboard,
Not one to five! Rectify your deviant lifestyles before melting glaciers
Flood us again. We’re banning Alice in Wonderland, burning
The Narnia Chronicles, then coming after you.
God’s calling us to cull the creatures to a divinely guided 7%.
We’re collecting nets, rifles, traps and fishing poles.
We’re forming brigades and launching crusades.
Pipefish, bandicoots, Galapagos hawks and all other
Unnatural abominations. Change your evil ways before it’s too late.
Effigy
we took the effigy to the cleaners
today
to get the red paint off.
it is my great grandmother before her fiery death.
my grandmother cries
everytime she sees it.
we pretend they aren’t her paint brushes hidden
under
the bed.
————
Emily Severance teaches elementary special education in New Mexico. She has a BA from The University of Michigan (where she won a Hopwood prize for poetry) and an MFA in studio art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She enjoys having her poems published in magazines with interesting names such as Breadcrumb Scabs, Puffin Circus, and Sisyphus. Her brushes with fame include the artist Orlan proclaiming her as “perfect,” porn star Jack Hammer taking her to dinner, and Sir Angus Wilson putting money in her UNICEF donation box.