Silcote’s Song of Love

Like a grief-stricken potato
I knot my furrowed brow.
Feckless my weary fate,
I vex; what hex is on me now?

My bowie knife is dull.
The moon is half full.
To sleep, much more to lull;
Dreams torn apart by a ghoul.

Your pink face haunts my sleep.
Your strong body grips my eyes.
Frustrated I nearly weep.
Sacrifice Procyon; one by one he dies.

Buxom bathers of beauty
Tending my flock of flacks.
My hands are dirty, my face is sooty;
Ashes have mingled with my locks.

I twist in the hammerlock of love.
It must be more than lust.
The stalked scourting rush
Stands tall and proud—like my love.

Your shellfish eyes stir my innards.
Your film-crew face makes me brew.
I dissolve in your afterglow.
In the absence of your shadow I stew.

Red lips, brown freckles, green eyes;
Curved hips, bright speckles, lean thighs.
I chop through the river ice
To slake my thirst of love and lies.

I puff my Borkum, chew my weed.
Don’t make me grow that marijuana seed.
Suffer my sad eyes to your train,
It hasn’t come and I am drained.

Chopping wood I think of things.
Dark thoughts fly skyward on thin bat wings.
Bring back the light; battle Procyon
Lest life ebb to mowing the lawn.

Stirrings deep within my soul; I chant
them and cry and howl with the critters.
Stay my yearnings sweet pink strangeness.
Place me an arrow in your quiver.

In the well of endless love I flounder.
Should I eat margarine rather than butter?
My torn heart beats like thunder;
Tears, rage, love—I am a-flutter!

Down the hallway of love I tread
in my Procyon loafers.
A twist of fate and I am dead.
Like the Procyons below me.

Foolish flame, it grows. I know
My thoughts are rivetted on your CO2
Emanating from your nostrils over your chin.
Waiting, I grow lean, gaunt, and thin.


Edward Potter Silcote
Dr. Gillem T. Prwytsiski
Raccoon Control Ecologist
Quaternary Phytochronologist
Victoria, B.C.
Topley, B.C.

Allen's Lament

Allen’s Lament

Stampeded by a wavelet,
Banner scuttles to the other pontoon.
Fear drains his face ashen;
Self pity his only passion.

Nervous, he rummages his daybag for a candybar.
His bloodshot eyes flick from side to side.
Like a frightened red-backed vole,
He fingers his beard and a facial mole.

His panicked paddle whisks the spume
ineffectually.
Is that river-foam or fear-spittle
that streaks his cheeks?

River terror haunts his dreams.
From his tent, whimpers—not warrior screams.
Scrabbling on the nylon walls with chapped fingers;
Damp sleep fitful; river torment lingers.

Sentinel eagles patrol the slatey cliffs.
Their stony gaze fixed on Allen’s pasty face.
They scent death, decay, carrion;
Banner’s moans and squeals clear as a clarion.

Yellow rubber raft #2 reeks with the stink of fear.
Banner’s eyes glitter like cheap glass jewelry.
Formerly affable with stout raftmates dear,
Now he snaps harshly at their innocent tomfoolery.

Luckless in fishing; wired with empty calories;
Defeated by mountains a cakewalk for Mallory;
Bedevilled by the biting fly and burrowing midge;
Allen pokes bitterly at his brown sugar-less porridge.

He hunches dejectedly to his ill-pitched tent,
And the darkness of night closes in.

JP & MG
“Boreal Storm” expedition, September, 1996