The Circle R

Coyotes howled for the strength of those silent men of Circle R, their code of simple honour, their appetite for apple cobbler. Deer and the antelope licked shy salt from their bandanas, with tongues chaparral-rough. And the men never said a word of discouragement, only tipped their hats with a grateful, “Shucks, ma’am,” to the does, and clucked their little dogies into nights as starry as their shirts were checkered. Came a cloud-beset day. Strangers rode in, so slouchback louche and indifferent, they would splurt tobacco juice into the presence of a lady. This, the Circle R could not abide.

Image: Blake Matheson.

Falling Rocks

Do not exceed the recommended dose. Do not exceed the recommended dosage unless advised by a physician. Please do not take liquid nitrogen without Dr. McDermott’s permission. Narcotics such as Oxycontin are available by special order only. Call before you dig. Antidepressants can cause suicidal thoughts. Dogs that dig holes must have their owners fill them in immediately. Holes create safety hazards for other users, especially after dark. (Sleep in darkness.) Antidepressants can cause suicidal thoughts. Jumping from bridges and cliffs has resulted in serious injury and –
     Plunk.
     Falling rocks. Submerged rocks. The sea is calm tonight. Sleep in darkness.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Pound notes

The pound notes. It notices, with measured gaze, sugar creaming into butter. Beat in eggs, fold in flour or, for a melt-in-your-mouth sensation, beat room temp liquid ingredients into the dry. It remarks dispassionately how heavy hands thump upon a door. There might be a sharp foot note next, to no avail; followed by a shoulder note, then bars successfully broken by a stave. The pound notes whenever a three-legged dog is scooped up, its eyes searching out the windows of the City van, the wood-on-metal clang of each xylophone being seized, evidence of the licorice-sticky hands of a child.

%, sigil for hashes

In Perl, % is the sigil for hashes. Perl, language of debutantes in long oyster satin gloves. Not spoken, but drawn through the dust keeping vigil in the powder room. The hash function maps each possible key to a unique slot function. If – and only if – one glove slithers off, leaving its debutante behind, that’s a sure tell a one-armed bandit has absconded with it, off to play the slots for double diamonds, one up on the deb. She’s waltzing alone, a glass with three cherries – how uncultured! – in the remaining glove, the other hand behind her back, fingers crossed.

Posted to dVerse Poets.

Occasional table dreaming

An overture. An orange peel. The ocean’s opalescent eels. The onerous drains. Auteurial games. The au courant says au revoir when, au début, it thought of you – now ordinary, then so strange. The open windows overlook an oleander’s opaque scent, the aubergines loll on the vine, a two-hand nocturne skips a beat. Occasionally, a table stands, an oval whorl tipped to its feet. A heap of books slips slideshod off and Dover Beach falls to the oak – Opa! Olé! Oohs and ah, love, let us be true. The table sways, tiptoes a ways, again it sits, again to sleep.

Image: Matthew Arnold with Occasional Table, by K. Bischoping
Part of dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.