Jeramy Dodds

The Epileptic Acupuncturist

People who get their rocks off
in glass houses are the same people
who’d bend you over a rain barrel
just to give you the wet T-shirts
off their backs. You can’t shoot
your mouth off if you’re out of earshot.
Let bylaws be bygones, don’t mind
your own business into the ground,
all that glitters is not cold to the touch.
You’re only human once. If you’ve taken
the American way down a one-way street,
you’ve got to wipe your nose with the heart
on your sleeve. Don’t knock yourself up over it,
baby. When they kicked dirt in your eye
they didn’t think they’d be losing ground.
If your household name’s ruined by word
of mouth, take the gift horse to town for a night
it won’t soon forget. Colonel Sanders didn’t lick
his fingers to the bone just so you could go it alone.
If you get what I’m getting at, raise your red hand.
You’ve got to kiss a lot of ass to get a little behind
in this business. Playing your silver spoons
with a bedpan band is like going for broke
at a church bazaar, more need than bother, more
clutch than grasp. You’ve got to be half in the bag
all the way to the bank. The mind is a terrible thing
to keep chaste. If you can’t be drawn to my quarters,
do I part the sea and split? I treat my objects like women,
but I’m as Oedipal as you are Eve. True, I’d drop
a latch-key kid off at an open-cast mine,
but you’re nothing to shake champagne at.
I think you’ll agree with me here, the lake’s
so clear you can see yourself to the door.

From Crabwise to the Hounds, by Jeramy Dodds
copyright © Jeramy Dodds, 2008