Fiction

Raven

Raven

When Raven flies through his trap door in the sky, a light bulb clicks off in my head and I fall into darkness. Is there some safety net before oblivion? Raven’s claws scar crow’s feet on a fingernail moon. His bleak black beak widens the hole in my head and the Easter egg of my skull shows thin blue cracks. Outside my window, the river moves backwards and forwards with the tide. Raven shrugs at cancerous creatures, promising nothing. He soars into clear skies in search of his private exit and extinguishes sun, moon, and stars, plunging our world into blackness. The light on the point picks out a heron, mobbed by a clacking ring of gulls. The sea mist wraps the real world tight in its cloak. Now sea and lighthouse, heron and gulls, are distant things of memory. Raven, shoulders hunched, stands like a stone, an anthracite block hacked out from the coal seam in my mind, hand carved from feathers and my forefathers’ blood.

Commentary:

I had forgotten all about this poem in prose. It comes from Fundy Lines, if I remember correctly. Photo credit (below) to one of my former students, an excellent poet herself, who took the trouble to locate the correct rock and then take a photo of book and rock together.


Moo thought his painting of a dark shape that looks a little bit like a bird of ill-omen would be just what this prose poem needed. Maybe he’s right. I trust him with his choice of paintings. Well, most of the time anyway. He can be a bit ‘off’ from time to time, but mostly we form a good team, especially where Surrealism is concerned.

I guess Raven formed part of my Surreal sequences. I really do enjoy Surrealism. The mixing of metaphors, for example, the unexpected meeting of a sewing machine with a carving knife and an umbrella on an operating table. And look what Raven’s up to. He discovers a trap door in the sky. Well, that would be very useful, if we had wings and could fly. Then he turns off the light bulb in my head. I didn’t even know I had one in there. I guess Raven, like coyote and zopilote is a bit of a Trickster. Next he changes into a woodpecker and widens the hole in my skull. Poor old me – avian trepanning – no wonder I have problems! My head becomes an Easter Egg and has cracks in it giving birth to what? Some mad ideas, I guess, pecking their way out into the wonderful world in which Moo and I live in perfect harmony with my beloved and our cat. And look at all those Welsh mining memories – lignite, house coal, steam coal, anthracite, jet – and remember, when the coal comes from the Rhondda down the Merthyr – Taff Vale line, I’ll be there.

It will be a long way from Canada to Taff’s Well. Maybe Raven will be kind and fly me there, through his Island View trap door that has direct access to the trap door just above Castell Coch, the Fairy Castle of my childhood. That would be faster, and easier, than my old two-wheeler Raleigh bicycle with it’s Sturmey-Archer three gear click on the handlebars. I bet Raven can fly faster than I can pedal. And if I could have pedaled as fast as Raven flies, downhill and uphill, I would have been King of the Mountains and an all time winner of the Tour de France. Now that would have been surrealistically surreal, seeing me as a cereal winner, with my snap, crackle, and pop! Not that my dad would have been happy. He never was happy with anything I did!

Cage of Flame

Cage of Flame

Now you are a river
flowing silver beneath the moon.
High tide in the salt marsh:
 your body fills with shadow and light.
 I dip my hands in dappled water.

Twin gulls, they float down stream,
then perch on an ice-floe
of half-remembered dreams.

Eagle with a broken wing,
why am I trapped in this cage of flame?
When I turn my feathers to the sun,
my back is striped
with the black and white
of a convict’s bars.

Awake, I lie anchored
by what pale visions
fluttering on the horizon?

White moths wing their snow
storm through the night.
A feathered shadow ghosts
fingers towards my face.
Butterflies stutter
against a shuttered window.

A candle flickers in the darkness
and maps in runes
the ruins of my heart. Eye of the peacock,
can you touch what I see
when my eyelids close for the night?

The black rock of the midnight sun
rolled up the sky.
Last night, the planet quivered
beneath my body
and I felt each footfall
a transient god.

When will I be released
from my daily bondage?

Commentary:

Moo reminded me that this poem also existed as a prose poem. here it is in prose layout. Think about it and let me know which version you prefer. Is one easier to read than the other? Do the rhythms come through more strongly in one version? Meanwhile, since he hasn’t painted a cage of flame, nor a river flowing silver, he suggested that if I really felt like the poem suggested I might feel like, then All Shook Up – with its warm, colorful flame images, might be just the poem to fit the crime. Better, he said than playing billiards on a cloth untrue, with a twisted cue, and elliptical billiard balls.

I wonder how many people recognize that little tip of the hat to the past glories of English Comic Opera? Since Canada post is on rotating strike – talk about twisted cues and elliptical billiard balls – then send your answers by highly trained snails (snail mail) or dog sled via whatever route still has enough snow for the huskies to haul on. Meanwhile, Ottawa has declared that the Maritime provinces are continuing with their suffering a buffering from lack of rain and severe drought. I do long for that river flowing silver, not to mention high tide in the salt marsh. We need water badly. And the sooner the better. Aquifers, rivers, wells, they all need filling.

Ah, the majestic game of cricket – and how I long for that summer test match curse – Rain Stopped Play. Or as the BBC commentator said on the radio one day – I heard him – “play has been stopped because of piddles on the putch – oh, sorry, I mean puddles on the pitch.” I wonder what Mr. Hugh Jarce would have thought of that. I know he always loved that old cricketing Chestnut – ‘The bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey.” Unlike much wanted rain, it didn’t stop the match, but the commentators who perpetrated that jest laughed so much, the commentary stopped for nearly five minutes. Oh, the things one remembers as one gets old. Now, where did I put my glasses? I wonder if my beloved knows.

Cage of Flame

Now you are a river flowing silver beneath the moon. High tide in the salt marsh: your body fills with shadow and light. I dip my hands in dappled water. Twin gulls, they float down stream, then perch on an ice-floe of half-remembered dreams. Eagle with a broken wing, why am I trapped in this cage of flame? When I turn my feathers to the sun, my back is striped with the black and white of a convict’s bars. Awake, I lie anchored by what pale visions fluttering on the horizon? White moths wing their snow storm through the night. A feathered shadow ghosts fingers towards my face. Butterflies stutter against a shuttered window. A candle flickers in the darkness and map in runes the ruins of my heart. Eye of the peacock, can you touch what I see when my eyelids close for the night? The black rock of the midnight sun rolled up the sky. Last night, the planet quivered beneath my body and I felt each footfall of a transient god. When will I be released from my daily bondage?

Monkey Meets Pontius Parrot

Monkey Meets Pontius Parrot
(With glorious  memories of Macarronic Latin)

Pontius Parrot is very clever
and very pontifical.
“Pretty Polly!”
He pontificates from his pulpit.

His name isn’t Polly
and he doesn’t have a pulpit
but he parrots words
in Macaronic Latin:
“Caesar adsum jam forte.”

Pontius Parrot is perky at the podium
and bounces up and down,
preening himself self-consciously,
rattling his chains,
shaking his bars,  and speaking Latin:
“Brutus aderat.”

He is marked with shame and scandal.
A dysfunctional family of feathered friends
 has henpecked him until he is black and blue
and he has thrown up copiously:
 “Caesar sic in omnibus.”

He dips his wings in holy water,
calls for some soft soap, 
and washes his feathers and claws.

Poor Pontius Parrot,
he can only say “Repent!”
“Brutus sic in at.”

Commentary:

I asked Moo if he had ever painted a parrot, but he told me that he hadn’t. However, one of his favorite viewers, had once called this painting a pile of spaghetti wriggling in tomato sauce and he thought that spaghetti was close enough to macaroni for it to serve as a painting for Bony Macaroni Latin.

I had to explain to him what we mean when we say Macaronic Latin. Back to that boarding school and we used to invent all sorts of Macaronic Latin phrases. They used to cane us with bamboo canes. So here’s the verb paradigm in Latin for ‘to cane a student’. Bendo – whackere- ouchi – sorebum. Of course, it helps if you know what Latin verb paradigms look like. They are easy to remember and are aide memoires for the four main parts of the verb. Bendo – I bend over – first person singular, present tense – whackere – to whack or cane – infinitive – ouchi – I said ‘ouch’ – past tense – sorbum – the inevitable result – past participle.

Now, if we look at the italics in the poem we see a poem within a poem, and that smaller poem is written in Macaronic Latin.

“Caesar adsum jam forte.
Brutus aderat.
 Caesar sic in omnibus.
Brutus sic in at.“

Translation

Caesar had some jam for tea.
Brutus had a rat.
Caesar sick in omnibus.
Brutus sick in hat.

Oh never underestimate the ingenuity – linguistic and / or otherwise (and we won’t go into that one right now) – of the bored-to-tears Public Schoolboy. Especially if he is not destined to be a Perfect Prefect like Perfect Prefect Plod – who was never any good at Latin, if I remember well. Neither was I come to think of it. Horrible language, dead and reeks like the dead rat that Brutus ate.

As for the ‘repent’, well, usually, just before he beat you, the master doing the beating would enquire as to your health and ask you if you repented of your sins, crimes, bad language, being cheeky to Perfect Prefect Plod, or whatever else you had done (like smoking or holding a girl’s hand in public instead of a boy’s). You always said ‘yes, of course I do, sir,’ in the vain hope of avoiding a beating. But, bad luck, the cane descended anyway, ouchi was heard, and the victim retired to the bath room to examine his past participle, also known as his sorbum.

I bet you never imagined any of that. Wow! What a great lesson I have taught you today. Think about it all and think about it carefully. Now you know why Pink Floyd sang “We don’t need no education.” But what an education it was. And remember, the Duke of Wellington, Old Nosey, once said ‘my battles were won on the playing fields of the pubic schools of England.’ Oh dear – I hope I got that right. I fear there’s a letter missing somewhere.



Monkey Visitsthe Chimpanzees’ Tea Party

Monkey Visits
the Chimpanzees’ Tea Party

Dressed to the nines in their gala outfits,
they have come here for the tea party.
Hairy penguins, they waddle back
and forth across the temple,
then lunge for a table with its jumbo shrimp,
smoked salmon, scallops, baked oysters.

Faces slashed from ear to ear
by enormous grins,
“Food’s free!” they say
and stuff themselves
regardless of the consequences.

Serviettes tucked into collars,
they scoff lobster and crab.
Birds of Paradise, subtle delicacies
flown in from half a world away,
decorate the tables.

There is something about them, though,
these chimpanzees,
gripping cup handles
between finger and thumb,
enormously pleased to be the centre of attention,
however clumsily they walk,
in their hired-for-the-occasion,
ill-fitting, black and white penguin suits.

Commentary:

Moo apologizes. He hasn’t painted any chimpanzees, but a long time ago (2018) he drew and colored this cartoon. Pink and Purple Penguin Parade with Grand Marshall, Princess Squiffy. You can just see the end of Princess Squiffy’s tail as she vanishes out of the cartoon, encouraging the Pink and Purple Penguins to follow behind her behind. Oh the joys of leading the parade. Not everybody wants to do it though, many are content not to lead, but just to follow. Perhaps we should have called our cat MacNamara. After all, he was the leader of the band. But I don’t think Princess Squiffy would rather be anything other than what she is – a princess.

This poem, from Monkey Temple (of course / wrth gwrs) reminds me of Parents’ Day at my Boarding School. After several weeks of scarcely edible food, the tide would suddenly turn. Thursday, prime rib roast beef for supper. Friday, roast chicken with all the trimmings. When our parents arrived on the Saturday, all we could talk about was the wonderful food we had been eating for the last two days. Cunning, eh? We all had to dress up for Parents’ Day. Sunday starched collars, collar studs and all, and nice clean Sunday School ties.

Tea on the lawns in summer – unforgettable. A marquee, in case it rained, but otherwise tables laden down with a variety of skillfully cut sandwiches, little triangles, with no crusts, followed by endless helpings of strawberries and cream. The boys served their parents, fleeting back and forth to full the rapidly emptying plates. One boys father, I won’t say whose, devoured 12 bowls of strawberries and cream before the headmaster call the son over and begged him to beg his father not to eat all the strawberries and cream as some other parents’ would like some also.

Griffin Hunting – not a typical public school sport but one in which my school most certainly indulged. Our school symbol – a griffin – woven with gold thread on a dark blue background symbolized for the younger boys the perfection of the Prefects. To Hunt a Griffin was to behave in such a way as to attract the attention of older boys (already Perfect Prefects) and the school masters so that one became a candidate to climb the ladder and become a candidate for Griffin-hood. Some of us, myself included, preferred the anonymity of Robin Hood and were happy in our chosen roles of outlaws in Sherwood Forest and agents provocateurs and anarchists. Not for us the gentle counting of innumerable sheep. We chose rather the perils of after-dark transistor radios and the joys of Radio Luxemburg.

I remember being caught out of bed one night, on my knees, in a corner of the dormitory. All the dorm occupants were squealing and making a terrible noise. This attracted the attention of Perfect Prefect Plod – and in he came, threw the door open, and switched on the light. “You!” he pointed at me. “What do you think you are doing, out of bed?” “I am catching a mouse, Prefect Plod,” I replied. “You are a nasty little liar,” said Prefect Plod. “There are no mice in our nice clean house.” “Oh yes there are,” I replied, and I showed him the little mouse that I had cradled in my hands. “Give that to me,” ordered Prefect Plod. So I did. And the mouse took an instant dislike to him and immediately sunk its sharp little teeth into his thumb. I remember Prefect Plod running out of the dorm screaming “Matron! Matron!” and the little rodent swinging back and forth and hanging grimly on.

Those boarding school days ended 63 years ago. Hard to believe, really, but I still have such vivid memories of them. And of the Perfect Prefects, gripping cup handles between finger and thumb, enormously pleased to be the centre of attention on Parents’ Day, however clumsily they walked, in their spruced up for the occasion, Sunday Suits and Shirts, with their Golden Griffin ties. I always think of the Chimpanzees’ Tea Party when I think of the special performances of that little lot ‘for a Prefect’s lot is not a nappy one, nappy one.’

How do you waste the most time every day?

Daily writing prompt
How do you waste the most time every day?
View all responses

How do you waste the most time every day?

Answering stupid questions like these – now that would be a great response. But there are other ways to waste time – like mousing around on the computer – some call it surfing, which sounds like fun – but acting like a mouse that’s chasing its own tail / tale, well, that is most surely a waste of time. Playing verbal cat and mouse games is a good way to go too.

Most devilish of all, sitting in a car, beside a lollipop person, who has just stepped out and stopped you from joining the car, ten yards ahead of you, that is now the last car in the latest convoy to be held up, while you are now the first car waiting to go next time. You sit, and sit, and wait.

Then – INSPIRATION – I turn my disc player on and lo and behold – Pete Seeger sings The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, from the Spanish Civil War. What’s special about that, you ask? Well, how about the chorus? – “No pasara’n! No pasara’n!” / “They shall not pass! They shall not pass!” sang the Abe Lincoln Brigade as the battle for Madrid thundered on. I open the car window, turn up the volume, bellowing it out loud while waiting to count the cars coming from the opposite direction.

It was a very long wait. And then the first of 109 cars, trucks, and various other vehicles appeared. Bored now with The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, I changed quickly to Viva la Quinta Brigada, kept the volume up high and “No Pasara’n! The pledge that made them fight” rang out as the official truck with its magic sign “Follow me!” crept up in front of me, turned, and started to crawl, snail mail style, down almost two kilometres of highway at 10 KPH.

When we got to the end of the road works, he turned into someone’s driveway, and I, and the next two cars behind me, followed him. I learned a few choice words to add to my vocabulary – “Like WTF do you think you are doing?” “It says follow me! on your truck.” I replied. ” I just did.” And off he went again on a long, four letter rant. Then, on foot, he stood in front of the convoy that had stalled anyway, now having nobody to follow, and guided his three black sheep out onto the road that led to freedom.

Well, that was an adventure and an absolutely total waste of time. As the court case will be, when I appear before the magistrate next week. Believe you me, if you believe all this, you would believe anything. And, congratulations, you have just successfully wasted another five minutes of your precious time and I have wasted ten of mine writing this piece.

Boxing Day

They’re not Boxing Gloves – but they could be. Photo by my friend Geoff Slater.

Boxing Day


            By the time I get up, the gloves are really off and the sparring has begun in earnest. I hear angry, raised voices, walk downstairs to the kitchen, and a hush falls on the room. Knife-edge glances slice their menacing ways through the thickening atmosphere.
            Time for boxing: on my left, in the blue corner, my mother, smoking what is probably her second packet of the day. A thin haze of grey smoke escapes from her bruised lips and a cloud of exhaled fumes crowns her head with a murky halo. On my right, in the red corner, my father. White-faced, hungover yet again, truly into the spirits of Christmas. He breathes heavily, like a Boxer Dog in the mid-summer dog-days, snoring and snorting at a bitch in heat. In the middle, my grandfather, the referee. He is keeping the combatants apart, creating a tiny breathing space so the true Spirit of Christmas can disentangle itself from those false Christmas Spirits and bring peace to earth again for at least sixty seconds between each round.
            I look around the heaving, seething, threshing silence of a room where conversation has suddenly ceased. The fire is burning merrily. Beside it, tongs, poker, and small shovel stand to attention. On the hearthstone, the little red brush, with its long handle lies in ambush. This is what my father uses to beat me when he can’t be bothered to take off his leather belt. Scorch marks from the hot coal fire sear the handle and back of the little red brush. I threw it on the fire one day, hoping to see the end of it. Of course, it was rescued from the flames, resurrected, and I got beaten for that act of rebellion too.
            “It’s all your fault!” My father breaks the silence, pointing at me. His red-rimmed eyes blazing with a sudden and renewed anger. He starts to rise, but my grandfather steps between us.
            “Go and see your granny,” grandpa tells me. “She’s in the kitchen. Go now!” He points to the kitchen door.
            I run a gauntlet of staring eyes and go to my gran. As I shut the door behind me, voices rise higher in the room I have just left. Boxing Day, indeed. The gloves are off. The battle has begun again. My grandfather has evacuated me from no-boy’s-land and, for a moment, I am no longer trapped in the mud-filled, cratered, shell-holes between the trenches, the uncut barbed-wire barriers, the poached-egg eyes peering through periscopes and spying on me from the parental and priestly parapets above the wooden duck-boards that line the floor on the far side of the room and keep the enemies’ feet clear of mud and water.

Lolly Lady

Lolly Lady

I guess if she were a boy she’d be a Lolly Laddy, or a Loblolly Laddy, depending on the circumstances. Did this one at 4:00 am when I was non compus mentis, whatever that means at that time of the morning. Just trying to keep from falling downstairs, I guess. I love the colors: violet for tranquility, red for strength and energy, yellow for clarity, and blue for feeling blue at that time of the morning.

I suppose, if I were Rimbaud, I would be able to write letters instead of colors. Alas, now I no longer know where to hang these things: I am running out of wall space. And frames. And nails. “A nail, a nail, my kingdom for a nail”… Richard III aka the Hunchback of Loblolly Alley. Mind you, I think his nail was detached from the shoe that fell from his horse. “To lose one horse is a tragedy. To lose two is careless.” Oscar Wilde on parenting.

I love the sparkles though. We have several sparklers and we keep them for the sad times when the world needs brightening, as it does all too often nowadays. The seasons roll on. The year is trickling by. I have decided to sleep under my duvet. It is certainly warm under there and the Teddy Bears really appreciate it. They want to hibernate, but I refuse to let them. If I let them hibernate the cat will be up on the bed, and we can’t have that, can we? Not me, and definitely not the bears. And here’s why not: Teddies or Cats? Click and you’ll find the answer. Or maybe you won’t. So try clicking here: Teddy Bears FFS. Oh dear, I think there’s a typo there: a Teddy Bear Typo. Never mind. I am sure you won’t mind.

I wouldn’t go down to the woods today, if I were you. And I think you know why! You shouldn’t go alone, either. But if you venture out, think twice about taking your teddies. They might run away to join the picnic and leave you all alone with the Night Bumps, the acorn throwers, the wild folk, and the Wood Chuck wood-chuckers.

Winking Night Bump

Winking Night Bump

If you have been following my blog for any length of time, you will know all about Night Bumps. Blueberry certainly knows all about them as we found out in Blueberry and the Night Bumps https://rogermoorepoet.com/2020/06/30/blueberry-and-the-night-bumps/

However, not all Night Bumps are nasty and this is a baby Winking Night Bump caught by the camera, or was it the paint brush, in the act of winking. I’d have written ‘red-handed’ but not all Night Bumps have hands. Some are just wormy squirmy wrigglers. And they can be the worst.

This isn’t what he really looks like, or is it a she? I cannot tell the difference. Well, not until they bump and grind anyway. Then they are like dentists’ drills. Sharp ones, blunt ones. Keeps you awake all night, they does, just thinking about ’em.

I don’t know what happened to the photo of the painting. But we all knows all about that too, don’t we, oh faithful followers of this faithless blog that sometimes arrives and sometimes doesn’t. Oh dear. Just look what happens when you look into the sunset. https://rogermoorepoet.com/2021/10/08/into-the-sunset/ It gets all distorted. Maybe I’ll have to have another go with the camera. A camera, a camera, my Night Bump for a camera. Or should that be ‘a camera for my Night Bump’.

Oh dear. This is getting out of hand. I’d better call for Blueberry. Oh, I forgot. He’s having his Sunday Siesta. No Nasty Night Bumps in action on a Sunday Afternoon, even if it is raining.

Now that’s a bit different. Well, shiver me timbers. And I bet I can do better than that. “Pieces of silver! Pieces of eight!” And all hands to the Naval Volunteer. Ship-shape and Bristol Fashion down on the docks that are no longer docks, not down by St. Mary’s on the Quay. “Aye aye, skipper.” And look out for that black patch. Whisky is the life of man. But rum rules at the Admiral Benbow. And everyone must eventually pay on the nails. Unless they gets dispensation from the Green ‘Un on a Satterday Nite. But watch out for those wheelbarrows tumbling down Christmas Steps during Rag Week. And thee must bist recall: it’s never safe in this aerial, especially under a tiny little ‘aat that like.

Crocodile Tears

Crocodile Tears

The crocodile lives in the wind-up gramophone. The gramophone lives in the top room of the house. The boy winds up the gramophone with a long brass handle, round and round, till the spring is tight. A tight spring frightens the crocodile and he sits quietly in his cage. But as the record goes round and the spring loosens up, the crocodile roars and demands to be freed. He’s the Jack that wants to jump out of the box. His long-term dream is to eat up the witch who looks out of the window and watches the boy as he plays in the yard.
            Last week the boy decided to dig. He picked up a spade and dug a deep hole that went all the way down to his cousin in Australia. The little dog laughed and joined in the fun, scraping with his front paws and throwing earth out between his back legs like happy dogs do. The witch in the window cackled with laughter and the rooks in the rookery rose up in a cloud and cawed in reply. Only the boy is able to see the witch and he only sees her when she sits in the window. But he knows she wanders through the house, and the air goes cold when she enters and exits the rooms, especially when she brushes past the boy and sweeps his skin with her long, black gown.
            When the boy got tired of digging, he drove the spade into the ground and left it standing by the hole. When his father came home it was well after dark. He didn’t see the hole but he saw the spade. So he didn’t fall in to the shaft of the coal-mine that went down to Australia. No free trip to the Antipodes for that unlucky dad. He beat the boy for that, for digging that hole. Then he beat him again for lying because the hole didn’t go to Australia. Australia was too far away and the angle was wrong. The boy laughed when he saw that his dad didn’t know where Australia was.
            “Ha-ha,” he laughed. And his dad beat him again, this time for laughing.
            Sometimes at night the boy can hear rats running through his bedroom walls. They scuttle and scuffle as they hunt through the guttering. The crocodile growls from time to time in that upstairs room. The witch cackles with laughter. The boy puts his head under the blankets and cries himself to sleep. Sometimes he wishes the crocodile would come and eat up his dad. But he loves his dad like the dog loves his dad even though his dad beats both the boy and the dog. Sudden beatings, they are, that arrive without warning: hail and thunder from a sunny summer sky.
            “Well, you’re not laughing now,” his father announces as he beats him one more time. “A beating a day keeps disobedience away. There will be no disobedience in this house.” When the father beats the boy, the dog cowers beneath a chair. The boy hears the crocodile growl and smiles through the tears as he wipes salt water from his eyes.
            “Are you laughing at me? I’ll make you laugh on the other side of your face,” the father taunts the son and beats him again.
            The crocodile growls. The old witch cackles. The rooks in the rookery rise up in the air and the father’s hair stands up on end like it does when lightning lights up the sky, and thunder rolls its drums, and the sky’s wheels rattle like an old warrior’s chariot whose wheels have not been greased. The veins stand out in his father’s cheeks as the old man once more raises his hand to the boy.
            The old man tells the same old jokes again and again. The boy must always remember to laugh at them as if he had never heard them before. If he doesn’t laugh, his father gets angry. Some of the jokes are good, and the boy likes the one about the Catholic with the pet crocodile who goes into a bar in Belfast and asks the barkeep if they serve Protestants. ‘Of course we do,’ says the barkeep. ‘Good,’ says the man. ‘I’ll have a pint of bitter for myself and a Protestant for the crocodile.’  Or is it the one in which the Protestant goes into the bar and ask the barkeep if they serve Catholics … anyway … whatever … one night, the boy dreams and it happens like this. The crocodile escapes from the gramophone. The witch hands the boy a leash and a collar and between them they restrain the crocodile.
            “Walkies?” says the boy.
            The crocodile nods his head and crocodile and boy walk down the street to the Kiddy’s Soda Fountain on the corner. When the boy walks in with the crocodile, the waitress raises her eyebrows and opens her mouth.
            “Do you serve grown ups in here?” the little boy asks her.
            “Of course we do,” says the waitress.
            “Good. I’ll have a glass of Dandelion & Burdock for myself and a grown-up for the crocodile. Please.”
            The witch says grace, the boy sips his Dandelion & Burdock, and they all shed crocodile tears as the boy’s pet crocodile chomps on the fast-disappearing body of the boy’s dad.
            Next morning, the boy wakes up. The witch and the crocodile are sitting on his bed.
            “I had a funny dream last night,” says the boy.
            The witch cackles. The crocodile burps, then sheds crocodile tears. The boy starts to laugh. He laughs until he cries and then the witch sheds crocodile tears too.