Tag: biting

Afterlife Lesson

Poison avoidin’s a good thing to do:
If you breathe, touch or taste it, who’s most annoyed? You.
Venom’s a friend if it springs from inside;
If it’s alien then there’s a chance you’ve just died.
What’s the difference between them? Stick this in your head:
When it’s venom, you’re bitten ‘n’ then end up dead.
Conversely, if you do the biting and die,
That was poison. Next time you’ll know better. Good-bye.

Turkey Toe Jam

A turkey took my toes today,
Just bit them off and ran away!
Well, more flap-waddled, like they do–
Those birds don’t “run” like me and you
(Or you and I). Whichever’s right,
I won’t be running much tonight
And not because I’ll be in bed;
My toes are missing, as I said.
It’s hard to run without your toes
And turkeys know that, I suppose,
‘Cause turkeys’ toes are missing, too.
(That’s why they run the way they do.)
You disagree? Well, I’ll admit
There may be grounds to argue it.
My expertise is incomplete
In re domestic fowl feet.
Semantically, though, I suggest
That turkeys’ “toes” don’t pass the test.
They do use claws to keep their balance,
Bony, quasi-toelike talons,
Foot-phalanges, you could say,
But are they truly toes? No way!
Mostly, toes attach to mammals:
‘Possums, pugs, koalas, camels,
Nutria, coatimundi–
They’ve got toes from here to Sunday!
Amphibeasts can have them, too–
Remember Shakespeare’s witches’ brew
In Act IV, scene 1, of Macbeth?
A frog-toed, prophet’s broth of death!
There are, too, mammals more exotic–
(Airborne) bats or whales (aquatic)–
That the toe truck left behind,
But if you look, I think you’ll find
That birds and reptiles missed the list
Of Things With Toes; they don’t exist.
But, I digress. The salient
Point is, the toes I had have went.
I wonder, was it jealousy
That drove Ol’ Tom to toenap me?
I don’t know why that turkey bird
Bit off my toes. Perhaps he heard
The menu for Thanksgiving’s feast?
It wouldn’t shock me in the least
To learn he bit me in revenge
For that L-tryptophanic binge
When friends and family gathered close
To find out who could eat the most
Hot stuffing, buttered rolls and yams,
Mashed potatoes, spiraled hams,
Berry sauces (mostly cran,
Distinctly shaped to ape the can),
Celery (both stuffed and rooted),
Salads (greened, three-beaned and fruited),
Pickled vegetables galore,
Hearts of artichokes, and more…
And always, last but never least,
The dish that’s most resistance-pieced,
The roasting, basting, tender-tasting,
Lemme-at-it, time’s a-wasting,
King of our Give-Thanksing feast,
The peerless, toeless Turkey Beast.
If that’s his beef, he’s got a point.
That turkey earned a knuckle joint
(Or ten) from my extremities
Pedallic. Pass the gravy, please?