A view from under the pew — July 17

Editor’s note: Amos is a churchmouse, who types by hopping on the computer keyboard, but he can’t operate the capital shift keys, and he shuns punctuation marks – except dashes and hyphens.

trapped by a cheese pizza

boss you may have heard

by now that i m a marked mouse

marcellus the mean nasty

mangy ungodly cat has

notified the church pew

underworld that he has put

my name at the head of his

black mouse list – his top 10

most wanted rodent chart

it seems boss that he thinks

i ve been slandering his

good name and smearing his

malicious cat character by

my genteel poetic musings

here in the bugtussle gazette

can you imagine that – where

do you suppose he came up

with such a far-fetched idea

question mark here boss

besides i didn t even know

he could read at any rate boss the word on the

street is that marcellus flashes red

anytime he just hears the

mention of my name sounds like he needs to see a

mental health cat counselor if you

ask me but what do i know boss

freddy flea told me he heard

from the cockroaches that

marcellus wants to catch me

and then slow-roast and eat

me covered in catsnip

so what s new says me to him

that s been his plan ever since i

accidentally spilled his kitty litter

all over his smelly cat food little did i know boss but

marcellus hired a notorious

ring-tailed killer cat named

ringo to plan my demise i met ringo the other day boss

it was a day i ve come to regret hey kid over here says he

youse looks like a discriminatin

mouse or are youse a grouse

or a louse in disguise

he purred with a crackle in

his hairy throat – you could tell

he was a carny cat gone sour not interested says me hows can youse not be

interested says he

since i haven t even started

my spiel to reveal the deal

to appeal to the real mouse

connoisseur in youse what deal are you talking

about says me with a tad

bit of curiosity i m talkin about more hot yummy

gummy cheese youse ever did see –

steamy melty stringy cheese

spilling over warm tender

pizza crust – just for youse

boss it was tempting

he had me drooling over the

images running helter-skelter

through my mousy mind where is this cheesy shangri-la

follow me to the land of

mousy paradise says he

and he led me to the biggest

drippiest gooiest cheese pizza

i ve ever thought about or dreamed i was hooked by both nostrils boss

as i floated over to the gargantuan

pizza i thought i saw out of the corner

of my eyes the dark menacing form

of marcellus slinking into the shadows

as soon as i stepped onto the cheese

pizza i was caught – the gooey cheese

engulfed me – i was slipping and

slurping at the same time – then i saw

marcellus about the spring and i dove

into a mass of cheese and tomato

it was horrible boss here i was

surrounded and terrorized by my

dream pizza haunted by the

nefarious marcellus

my life passed before me

in a cheesy whiz

marcellus had me in his clawful paws

but thanks to the hot mushy cheese

i slipped out of his grasp – i kissed

the cheese pizza a hasty goodbye and

dove into a nearby crack in the wall

my cheesy dreams now appear to be

more like nightmares these days boss

maybe the lord is trying to tell me

i don t need to fantasize so much

about cheese pizzas for a while

whaddya think boss

amos