100620b

 

stacked in the closet

slug eyes blink slowly

when I flick the switch

092420

 

the slug

shiny black

put its eyestalks out

my kid pulled hers back

090320d

 

life-size crocheted octopus

I asked for a colossal squid

but no love so far

050420c

slug trails
spell my name on the cement
nothing useful, like
tomorrow's racing results

050120b

squidball
the hard part
is rolling up the arms
before making the toss

021720c

octopi
always seemed so nice
sucker

013020b

delegation of snails
doff shells at palace gate
hermit crabs score big

041718

aerial nudibranchs
are small but deadly
zipper jaws

031518c

the internalized shell
best predator surprise
is slung at warp speed

061917

Catch a Slug!

Fillmore was stuck again, and the slug was due any minute. Stupid dog! Elle pulled on her boots and gloves and stepped off the curb, squelching into a good 10 cm of slime. Stepping carefully, she made her way out to where the beagle was completely plastered with mucus. Elle suppressed a shudder. How could this be better than diesel? (Whatever that was.) This was why she usually walked to school on the pedarch. She heard the slug's horn sound two short blasts. It was a block away.

"Come on, dummy," she said, reaching for Fillmore's collar. How could he hang his head and squirm away at the same time? The collar slipped out of her hand. Fillmore turned over to expose his belly. He knew she was angry. "It's ok," she shouted, "just come on!" Elle grabbed the collar again and dragged him to his feet. A loud "WHOOT!" blasted from the air horn on top of the slug's head. Fillmore gave a panicked lunge and Elle bellyflopped into the goop. The slug was braking, but sliding right for her, slime making a bow wave half a meter high at its front. She shut her eyes and mouth, curled into a ball. Imagine doing this for fun, like some gangbangers did.

She was airborne.

--

Somebody was washing her face. "Enough, already!" She put up her hands and pain shot through her left elbow. She screamed.

"Get that dog away from her," someone said.

Elle opened her eyes. She was lying on her back, ringed by strangers, thoroughly slimed. Fillmore was howling somewhere nearby. Her arm was broken. "Leggo my dog," she mumbled. A moment later Fill was nosing and licking her face. He bumped her left arm and her vision went out for a moment.

--

Or so it seemed, but when she opened her eyes again she was clean, in a hospital bed, and a cast covered most of her arm. Her mother stared at her from an armchair in front of the window. She took a deep breath.

Elle winced.

"What were you thinking, young lady?" Mother began. Ma probably meant well, but she didn't stop. Finally, Elle couldn't take any more.

"Ma! I wanted to get in the Rollers. It's part of the initiation. You know, slime rolling? Now I just have to get the tats." She pointed at her chest. "What do you think—a bug-eyed purple monster right here? It would match my thong beach suit."

As a way to shut her mother up this was spectacularly unsuccessful.

031017b

Doom Slug

They speak of a giant slug on St. Salver,

its eye stalks are like wrecking balls,

its trail of slime engulfs

whole herds of cattle,

those not picked clean of flesh

by its raspy tongue.

The giant slug of St. Salver,

nude and stupendous mollusk,

juggernauts gardens and forests alike.

consumes indiscriminately,

grows fat on its victims’ flesh.

In hushed whispers the tale is told,

a young lass lost in the high country,

the gargantuan invertebrate

ravening from the fog,

a scream piercing the night.

her lover waiting vainly,

till morning burned off the mist,

slippers embroidered with crimson roses,

a gift from her grandmother,

embedded in a gelatinous moraine.

her beau set out, torch-bearing,

determined to trap the creature,

burn it to the core;

his skeleton, found much later,

was pitted and brown, brittle.

To this day, the wilds of St. Salver

are home to fear, slime, and death,

and one thing more:

it lays gelatinous clusters

of basketball-sized eggs,

and these eggs hatch.

End of poem

122316b

Super Slug
sodium chloride
his only weakness

120416

a bounding conch eludes a predatory snail

it kangaroos across the prairie under sea

where conchboys ride proud tulip snails and jawbone yarns

but light no fires: they camp subaqueously

They really do this:

https://www.facebook.com/BahamaDivers/videos/1147173375336895/

At least, the first couplet...

092716b

There was a young slug name of Keri
munching a hole in a berry
the berry was plucked
the slug out of luck
icky, she tasted, but very!

112015

Dr. gave me a positive report, but I'm back to sitting up only 2 hours at a time.

Tiny Room

I'm a Tridacna, baby
Stuck here just waiting for you
I'm a stony serrated mouth
All ears if you want to talk too
Don't think the clown fish ever care
Corals absorbed in their affairs

[imagine a bunch more in here]

Freak out in this tiny room, girl
It ain't much, but it's my world


More or less to the tune of Bowie's "Moonage Daydream" (I think that's the title.)

out of work since '97

If they didn't taste so good


I didn't say anything
when they broke the wormhole navigators' strike
brought in monkey scabs
to fly those ships
tight with management
the anthropoid union was
stellar event when they tried to strike
company goons
bashed their skulls
tossed them down a sinkhole behind
corporate headquarters
what the heck are they gonna
replace the monkeys with
friggin octopi?
Me, I'm making a preemptive strike
molluscan sushi may be rubbery
but it goes down good
with a little hot sauce
And you, with your superfast axons
and your dinner-plate eyes
don't say you didn't see it coming
my advice is
keep your job in the cafeteria
ain't nobody want
a dang squid
in the driver's seat when little Marilou
and Mama are on board
taking the gas-giant tour
or visiting the cousins
out Vega way.


--

Cook before you leap

Think I'll stay put

There was a young mollusk named Stan
who found himself dipped in a pan
butter was bubbling
the heat it was troubling
“But fire's much worse,” remarked Stan

flash story

mollusca uber alles! http://www.dailycabal.com/2010/04/catch-a-slug/

molluscan horror

his pearlescent
radula stropped he set to
prisoner of the cone
she screamed & screamed
his white & russet shell