Fungi Fantastique Pt. 1

FUNGI FANTASTIQUE PT. 1

DEVIL'S TOOTH

Blood-beaded marshmallow

On forest floor

Dewing our night-dreams with

Vampirish horror

Devil—you lost it—

Now salivate red;

You roam through the trees,

Seek what fell from your head.

SATYR'S BEARD

Fluff fantastic, a foaming basket,

A waterfall fungi façade.

The goat-man, he romped

Through the fern-carpet fronds

And sought to elude the gods.

He left his beard here,

He left his beard there,

Fur decoy, confusion so odd.

And when he was done

He failed to reclaim

The shaggy face now grown so broad.

DRYAD'S SADDLE

On you, thing of the earth, the wood nymphs rest—

The Dryads, the Meliai, the Caryatids—

When flitting from whatever they flee.

Your kindly soft brown concave perch

Perhaps even once held Eurydice.

Her voice was lovelier than those of the sirens

For whom sailors swooned to their deaths

When taken in by their song.

But a viper unseen tangled with her flesh,

And Orpheus wept at the wrong.

 

PIXIE'S PARASOL

When the moon is a lantern

The faeries come out,

And oh what a sight to see!

With their mischief, their meddling, their merriness,

They caper about the country.

Bright bits of ribbon

The highest prize,

Cavorting takes on a goal;

The pixies prance, the pixies dance,

With their delicate blue parasols.