Cocky’s Holiday (2)
By:
August 19, 2010
HiLobrow won’t be publishing any installments of James Parker’s novel The Ballad of Cocky the Fox this month. Nor will we, this month, publish new issues of The Sniffer, Patrick Cates’ Cocky-related newsletter. Like Cocky, Parker and Cates are British; in August, they aestivate.
Cocky will return on September 2. The Sniffer will return on September 9. Until then, here’s a poem by James Parker.
three mouse songs (by Weasel Paul)
I.
It must be nice for the mice
to live twice.
Once as their little mousey selves,
adhering to the earth’s floor,
barely worth a drop of drool…
And then again, airborne, as owl-fuel.
II.
At your altar of crumbs like a tiny priest,
heart revving, eyes crossed —
Let me help you, mouse!
One strike from me, one bite right there,
and the spores of your terror are released to the air.
III.
Heed the word of the weasel.
At his command, freezel!
(After that — you may feel a slight squeezel.)