The Beast With Chrome Teeth

      By Thurmond Snyder

Make way for the beast with chrome teeth,

The glutton

Who sucks the blood of insincerity from split-level hearts.

The beast with chrome teeth,

Who sacrifices phony bodies on altars of conformity.

The beast with chrome teeth,

Who rapes the adolescent mind leaving it vacant.

The beast with chrome teeth,

Flogging bodies that are bathing in sound.

Guttural voices of brass smashing against naked bodies

Pushing them into other dimensions.

The beast with chrome teeth,

Whose yellow tongue pushes eerie sounds out of a cavern of lies.

The beast with chrome teeth,

Whose body is covered with wounds that drop flattery’s black dung

On white sand.

The beast with chrome teeth,

Whose bloody hands grope about the lion’s mouth searching for success.

Seeds

By Thurmond Synder

I stepped on the black winter seeds

Expecting a burst of violent color

To splatter over the frozen path,

But their ripeness lied to me.

They yielded a hard core.

Again I trampled the black seeds,

Grinding them underfoot,

But they were dry—there was no sign of life.

Then I wondered how these fat round

Seeds that once had sucked the sweet

Breast of nature could become

So fat and so dead.

I became frightened, I had to destroy the ugly seed.

Again, again, and again my foot descended upon the black seeds;

But the wind came, the frightened seeds scurried about seeking

Some haven from my violence.

Some disappeared among crevices in the path,

While others took refuge

In the brown stubble of grass

That shrouded the dead park.

Then bewildered, I turned and fled the grave of seeds,

The pain in my brain was a living thing,

I had to kill it with city aspirin.

And there I brooded the winter city days away,

Unconscious of time.

Spring came!

Again I walked along the path of black seeds;

Tiny buds had sprung up among the weeds.