Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
amos the churchmouse:
a view from under the pew
Editor’s note: Amos is a churchmouse, who types by hopping on the computer keyboard, but he can’t operate the capital shift, and he shuns punctuation marks – except hyphens and dashes.
amos wrestles a nightmare
boss you should never eat
day-old pizza slices leftover
from a church youth party
it creates strange visions -
and not those of the biblical sort
last night i went to sleep
in my little matchbox bed
and immediately dreamed
of falling into a dark deep
hole in the earth the fall
was punctuated by bursts
of fireworks that transformed
into snarling alley cat faces
suddenly there was a big
flash of light and i found
myself trying to wade
through a melted chocolate
bar to get to a dangling
piece of gourmet swiss
cheese held just beyond me
by green aliens from roswell
indiana jones never had it
this bad says me still trudging
through chocolate that was
rapidly turning into molasses
deciding that no cheese
was worth that kind of struggle
i suddenly found myself at the
end of no mouse land being
chased by a really angry
runaway ferris wheel
at the edge of the cliff where
no mouse land ends there was
a circus ringmaster who kept
handing out tickets and saying
go directly to the circus
do not pass go
do not collect two hundred dollars
and do not feed the elephants
or the mice
immediately boss a big gray
elephant swung through the
trees on a grapevine to
rescue me and take me to a
for-he s-a-jolly-good-mouse
party sponsored by the alley
cats for a better society
the cats kept trying to kill
me with kindness boss
they tried to feed me a
big bite of cake but i kept
refusing it because i knew
that it would blow me up
and i would eventually be
served as happy birthday
mouse pate to the world s
feline population
no no no they would purr
with their whiskered grins
we want to be your friend
we want to play games with you
and love you to the very end
for some reason boss i didn t
believe them then it occurred
to me that i was just like
peter on the rooftop in acts
having visions of clean and
unclean animals
i was just on the verge of
deciding to take a bite of the
cake when freddie the flea
landed right in the middle of
my tummy and kept hopping
up and down
wake up wake up amos he was
yelling and bouncing up and
down
why what s the matter
says i
well besides your snoring
you re yelling and screaming
and tossing and turning and
you re keeping the whole
church pew underworld awake
and miserable
visions and dreams are one
thing boss and can often
come from the lord but
nightmares are something
else like i said don t ever
eat day-old pizza leftover
from a church youth party
amos