Noodle
By Paul Handley
I put my hand in a hole to confront my fear.
I pulled out a bloody stump
I noodle for bottom feeders.
I punched the hole.
Leeches were under my nails.
Scaly skin, sharp whiskers,
nibble of teeth are all there.
I hear babies cry for their mother.
I’ve had rabies shots five times.
Like to get it early spring
to last a season.
Not all beaver work ethic,
But build on others.
Might be brick fireplace that was covered,
Other animals come back
depending on size and ferocity
have new digs or unexpectedly
new construction.
I stunned a rodent.
I stunned a wood chuck.
My claddagh ring hit bone.
I’ve started a rock garden.
Build a hole next to the hole
and tap and knock on the wall.
Plaster of Hades dusting their fur.
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Paul Handley spent a career as a student and a student of odd jobs. He has an MA, an MPA, and is ABD. He has driven a cab and sold meat door-to-door. Paul has work included or forthcoming in Apollo’s Lyre, Boston Literary Magazine, Ophelia Street, Poesia and others.
By Paul Handley
The door is open just a shade to the dark.
A skimming quaver of a black hole
seeks a place on the sand
just vacated by tide.
A cape settles with a flourish just beyond footsteps,
on puddles that saturate it a cloudier ink.
Even those whose awareness of sentient
things have been sanded down to cyborgs,
puters that think they are human and vice versa,
know a stick has been shoved in between spokes and snapped.
Harsh breath tops the boots that scarcely
imprint the cape mat, unused to the heavy air of earth.
The black hole that will serve as a base
filtered sand from the air being inhaled.
Animation is clunky. So much restricted
that they don’t even know their own land
due to their handicap.
Recruits were the mission completus.
People don’t pledge allegiance to vapor.
Worship yes, but not zeal. Time did not yet allow.
The worship will follow.
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Paul Handley spent a career as a student and a student of odd jobs. He has an MA, an MPA, and is ABD. He has driven a cab and sold meat door-to-door. Paul has work included or forthcoming in Apollo’s Lyre, Boston Literary Magazine, Ophelia Street, Poesia and others.
Dinner Spat
By Paul Handley
Carve me another slice
Of that hambone.
What in the hell is a
Hambone, Rufus?
Well, Beauregard, it don’t
Mean nothing in particular,
Just what present itself,
Like that twitchin thigh
Part, the fire done singed
The sweat off. And don’t
Call me Rufus.
Don’t call me Beauregard.
And Rufus is my name,
But I don’t like the way
It sounds in your mouth.
Now cut me some or I’ll
take off the gag and you’ll
hear a squeal that will
split the oaks.
This was your idea.
Don’t suppose that
Matters if the authorIty
Were to floss your teeth
Right now. You do floss,
Don’t your Beauregard?
You’re right and you were
Right about keeping him
Alive. Tastes like
European chicken without
The steroids.
And preserves, right?
Right.
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Paul Handley spent a career as a student and a student of odd jobs. He has an MA, an MPA, and is ABD. He has driven a cab and sold meat door-to-door. Paul has work included or forthcoming in Apollo’s Lyre, Boston Literary Magazine, Ophelia Street, Poesia and others.
