Darwinian Comeuppance

Just desserts when justice hurts
A certain fate of payback
Late in the game, by the game
Gaming them, maiming them
And by slaying them, delaying one more
Dastardly deed of diabolic greed
That brought their targets to the brink of extinction
Their mystical distinction of horns that cure cancer
Horns that give hard-ons
Horns that when snorted
Give distorted reasons to party on
This time the rhinos’ reprieve was a gift
From the pryde that found poachers
Adrift on their side of the rift
Strayed into the jaws of the king and his court
Escorted to their demise
Their reprise:
Three pairs of gloves
Three pairs of boots
Three bleeding hearts
A rifle or two
And the rhinos
They never knew.

#Why I Didn’t Report

Because i was a baby
Because it started before i was three
Because i was four and he said he’d kill me
Because i was a child and didn’t know
Because i was 13, he was the father of the kids i babysat and
He told me i’d get arrested for prostitution
Because i was 14 and he was my surgeon
Assaulting me in the ER before my appendectomy
Because i was 15 and he was my teacher and a member of the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir and no one would believe me
Because i loved him and i thought he would kill himself
Because he was my uncle, my mother’s brother
Because he was my hero
My priest
My brother
My father
Because he worked at the FBI
Because i didn’t want to break my mother’s heart
Because i couldn’t break my parents’ hearts
Because i didn’t want my father to commit murder
Because he threatened me if i ever told
Because i was drunk and drugged and passed around
Like a fuckin’ bong
Because i’m still scared now that telling will be worse than keeping silent
Because i knew what i would face:  A justice system that wouldn’t protect me and
A society that wouldn’t believe me
I still remember his smell

Possible Side Effects

I read the side effects
Suggesting what I might feel,
Or not.
That slight sense of dizziness,
Pehaps a coincidence,
Or not.
In which case I might be experiencing
A side effect
“This medication could increase a state of anxiety”,
Well, how would one know
Already anxious from the state of
Possible dizziness?
Certainly, the “loose stool” is real
Not conjured from a anxious state,
Either real or not,
Yet, I have heard anxiety could promote
A heart attack,
Certainly a real event.
I might be sensing a rash coming on,
My skin feels warm, rather clammy.
Is this what is meant by “flush”?
Well, why wouldn’t my heartbeat increase?
Certainly less common, but not if
Anticipating a rash that may or may not
Be presenting itself.
The Z-pac I took for what may or may not have been bronchitis
Expired two years ago.
Maybe that means something foreboding,
Or not.

Over Winter: A Rap by DJ TazzieDog

Monarch migration, a round-trip sensation
Criss-crossing the nation
Through heartland waystations
Bound for salvation, down Mexico way
A sway, a flutter, a lift
A shimmering cloud adrift
Headed south in the fall
The primordial call of recalling
Those mountains, those trees
Collective memories of the Oyamel canopy
A panoply of autumn hues
Cues them to muster their strength
To cluster in windblown flanks
Their aposematic ranks repel the predatory blackbirds, bluebirds
The shrewd birds, hip to the trick
Of the Monarch schtick
Their toxic wings of sunset glory
Bring no gastronomical delight
No reason to employ the beak for a bite
So, on they go
Slow and sailing
Never a flail, never flailing
To their mountain top backdrop
The clock is set
At nature’s behest, comes the months-long rest
Barely a shudder, nary a stir
They settle in
Over winter.

Sucking Air: A Rap By DJ TazzieDog

Am I simply taking up air
Nothing more
Just a breath
Nothing less?
If the test of worthiness
Is to be more like a tree
I have failed utterly, miserably
Sequestering nothing, no vapid toxins
No CO2
Rather, I chew
The dogbone of fossil fuel pretties
Spewing banal, inconsequential ditties
A whorehound for plastic do-dads
I can do without fads
Take, for instance, a straw
500 million a day gnaw away
Eating up landfills, drifting through sewer grills
Their pesky swill joins the gyre’s
Detritus of excessive stuff
Mired in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Hatched by plastics and chemical mush
Trapped by currents, debris that won’t budge
Soon to displace our Pelagic mates
With a wasteland of outlier sludge and a tragic fate

The disorder of the day
Vanquishes the carefree takeaway
High stakes at play
Backdropping to a tick tocking, tick tocking
The meter is running, the time is dear
Steer clear of the foot dragging barkers
Their miasmic drivel darkens
The hallowed way, detours, delay
Swaying opinion
Complete dominion
Snuffing out insight, rebuffing the bright light
A vampire’s delight
Yet, despite the frantic antics of those bellicose banshees
Before us we can see,
The infinite wisdom of the tree
And that makes all the difference.