NEEDLING

A snake being gobbled by another snake
naturally curls itself in a tight ball

rendering Wabdabdal’s swallowing
and masticating process near impossible :

       a snake roll
       is a lot tougher to chew on
       than lets say
       a cinnamon roll or a tootsie roll.

First of all
when sandwiched between Wabdabdal’s jaws
he knows he’s done for, he knows it
yet a mordant survival instinct
a poignant need to not be eaten whole
or in parts 
kicks in to the last squeaky breath 
                             – he knows it – 
                      one last rattling sigh.

He twists himself up in vainglory
of a sailor’s eight with extra loops

pertinently knowledgeable of his powerlessness
he does his best to make Wabdabdal’s task
a real pain in the neck.

Considering a snake is all neck
and no ass
this becomes a substantial pain.

However, this is not enough.

A snake eating snake 
is unflinchingly patient
calculatedly cold and tenacious.
The odds of him spitting out his prey
are basically little to none
even if the pleasures of the flesh small
or even absent 
and the protein intake, compared to the energy dispensed
minimal… 
it’s highly doubtful, highly improbable
that a snake eating snake
will let his doomed captive go.

(A poem my friend Brian is designing a poster for. It is from my book Beer songs for the lonely that my friend Claire in Paris is publishing soon. I'm very excited about both these projects. Brian doesn't have a website, but he's working on one, and as soon as it's up I'll have a link to it. He does great work. This is all I could find on the net as an example of his work. Though the image is very small, that particular painting is at least five feet by four feet. It's a big one, and it is explosive.)