Gorge Buoyant

I once ate a fly by accident.

Again…

I want to be very clear on this.

It was by     accident.

I would in no way do this 

with malicious intent.

This is not to say I feel any form of

affection towards flies,

   for I do not.

In fact,    I despise the little buggers.

But let’s come to an understanding.

I     am an overwhelmingly loving and

   entirely lovable person,

and though I    loathe flies,

I absolutely    would not

consume one     in any 

vindictive manner.

 

Yes, it is quite understandable

   that flies have nutritional value,

but at this specifically stated 

   moment of ingestion,

I was not particularly malnourished.

I could easily have made it ‘til nightfall

without the sacrifice of his    

   protein sustenance.

Without a doubt,   I

   would have   survived.

 

Being as I am overflowing 

with raging hormonal butchy-ness,

it should be of no surprise that I once experienced

   a wilderness survival school.

Yes indeed, by bug breathed brethren…

   John Rambo      and    Yours   Truly.

Mano-a-Mano with 

nary a vending machine

within a fifty mile radius.

Would I slit Stallone’s throat for the 

      last        stale      twinkie?

Does Boy George own a pair of pink panties?

You damn straight!

I am not to be trifled with

when it comes to cup-cakes.

Especially with them there sprinkles on top.

 

Ahem… Anywho…

This guy    was throwing    up.

 

Wait!

I just prematurely climaxed my poem.

Let’s back on out and 

re-insert     from another direction.

 

Today’s Survival 101 objective 

   is to catch a trout.

Catch him,    cook him,    eat him.

And though them thar fishy things

   be a bit of a rarity,

all us men have    

easy access to worms.

Just dig on down into 

Mother Earthy’s womb

and they’re slippin’ n’ slidin’ a 

slimy squirm fantastic.

 

And this guy was throwing up.

   Yes, well…   

okay.

Let’s just move on to that 

post poetic oh so 

climaxadelicious 

   cigarette shall we?

 

Not too many fish in the creek but

a whole lotta worms in the mud.

And a worm being 

high in protein goodness,

the instructor goads our 

designated vomitee

   into swallowing one whole.

Swallow him live.

Swallow him down 

and be done with it.

 

Okay, let’s just jump to the

After-the-fact vomit vile-tastic.

 

He what did the puking tells me

that it wasn’t the aspect of

eating a worm    

that made him hurl.

No.    Seems that 

one of the side affects

   of swallowing a worm 

whole and alive

is that whole and alive worms

   don’t like to be swallowed.

That they resist the urge to go down.

   This worm…

This worm wanted out.

 

And I sorta figure 

this is the moment of truth 

where the worm        

gets religion.

That he’s in there sayin’    

“I hear ya Lord and

Imma willin’ to do 

whatever it takes ta get out.”

And there in the back of this fella’s throat

a disco mirror ball     startsta rotating

and the worm     startsta wigglin’.

And this guy, who    by the way,

has decided he’s not having a

   whale of a good time,

brings forth unto the creek’s sacred bank 

   a somewhat blessed worm.

 

And yea…

That fly I swallowed all those years ago…

Now that I think about it…

 

Sucker must have been a 

god    damn    

atheist.

 

©08 Jack Hubbell

    Cooties

This much was certain. 

She had cooties, 

and because of it, no one 

would sit next to her. 

Now if you asked them 

what cooties were, well… 

that was sorta 

hard to define, but… 

they weren’t stupid. 

They knew that if 

you had cooties it was bad 

and by golly, Sherry 

had allot of cooties. 

Oh yea… and she was 

mentally retarded too. 

I figure it’s fairly important 

   to let that be known. 

I suppose that, for them, 

cooties kind of came 

hand in hand with 

mental retardation. 

I’m not exactly sure 

how they came by such logic, 

but I think this 

would be a good place to 

define the word ‘stupid’. 

It might just be instructive. 

Was it stupid for me to 

not know that mental retardation 

and cooties went together, 

or adversely, 

stupid for some 

to make that connection  

a little too easily? 

Was Sherry a girl of 

special needs? 

Well yes, of course. 

And here we should define 

“special needs”. 

Other than Sherry, 

there were the special needs of 

everyone else on that bus. 

They needed the other; 

    the outsider; 

        the lesser; 

            the substandard. 

The most ultimate of that 

   which they were not. 

And what with the 

presence of Sherry, 

it was pretty easy to 

score high on the 

bell curve of intellect. 

And so… okay. 

Maybe I can understand the 

need for Sherry’s existence in this 

ever expanding universe; 

on this spinning Earth; 

on this one particular traveling bus. 

People want to be seen as smart 

and how can you ascertain 

your level of intelligence 

without some lower benchmark 

to base it on? 

So if I put you on the spot… 

If just now I asked you to 

define mental retardation, could you 

do that for me? 

Substandard intelligence 

   relative to what? 

Did Sherry possess that which was 

   substandard compared to say… 

   the family dog? 

Was Sherry smarter than 

the smartest dog that ever existed? 

Well yes. 

That’s obvious. 

And yet Sherry could not and 

would never be able 

to do calculus; 

never understand 

complex astrophysics; 

never comprehend 

quantum mechanics. 

But then… 

What the fuck? 

Neither can I. 

So Sherry and I have this in common, 

and though both of us 

know how to tie shoelaces, 

we will never master higher math, so... 

I guess graded on the bell curve, 

the both of us fall into the 

lesser class of mental retardation. 

Having said that, 

I didn’t always have cooties. 

Not yet anyway. 

But of course 

there was that one day, 

so many years ago, 

when I climbed onto the bus, 

made my way down the aisle,  

and of all those empty seats, 

took the one next to Sherry. 

And there from the back of the bus 

came an immediate chant: 

“Jack’s got cooties! 

 Jack’s got cooties!” 

Yes. Perhaps I did, but 

let’s just call it what it was. 

    An inoculation. 

You see, 

it could be that cooties 

are very much like a virus 

and once you’re exposed to them, 

you’re inoculated 

from further infection. 

A lifetime inoculation…  not 

against being retarded, 

but rather,  

against that 

which existed 

there at the back of the bus. 

Something of which even I of 

limited mental capacity, 

could easily define 

not as that of 

superior intelligence, 

but rather 

that which fell 

under the 

simple nomenclature 

of  

“absolute 

    idiots”.  

©06 Jack Hubbell