Carnivore, or Nagasaki Mon Amour

There is no lotus

without the mud

—Thich Nhat Hanh

 

I never asked you

for a flower. I prefer

my floorboards

clean. Who’s to spout

what is and isn’t

worth it? Spare me all

your Mahayana

prattle.

 

There cannot

be redemption

without the blood.

Now is not the

moment to be queasy.

Am I spared

your skyward rapture

if I confess my

fear of flight? I’d make a

lousy eagle. Hiding in the

bushes with my

baldness.

 

There’s no living

without a pogrom.

Tell me of Treblinka,

the measuring

of skulls, books &

bodies burning in

a pillar, as if the smoke

cannot ascend

without the fire.

Infernos can only

consume

what once had breath.

 

There’s no poem

without the stone

in Yucatan. Tell me

how you’d dodge

Dakotaraptor, groceries

in your arms, messing

up your Converse

in the mire,

berated by your wife

for leaky eggs.

 

Our son is ever-

curious, asking if Godzilla

would exist

if not for Fat Man.

Not Toho’s green

behemoth—the guy in the

rubber suit, bowing to Hirohito

in its stead, hearing that

he’s soiled the rug again; 

that he’s footing

the bill himself, and if it

happens one more time

 

he’ll learn what

being barefoot

really means, dashing

his heel on rocks

like some beguiled

Son of God, knowing rain

would not be rain

if not for drought, wings are

only wings

because a colossus

wouldn’t slow its

ruthless chase.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

June 30, 2026 

Dakotaraptor Image: Natural Dinosaur Museum, Australia

Children at Play

We’ve driven down

this street for seven

ages & haven’t seen them.

A diamond

sign that lies. Or maybe

out-of-date by

a country mile.

 

Kids on Phones would

be more apropos—

hinting we should

creep at a loris’

pace—they’ll never

see us coming

thanks to Apple.

 

I’m Methuselah-

enough to think of

Beatles. Or maybe

Eden’s garden,  

a sluggish serpent/snake.

 

They’ll step in

front of our Audi—

every gaze is

drooped—like flowers

in the crack of

pavement where

the rain has failed to reach.

 

And such are they—

missing the gift of

water all around them—

a creamy May

magnolia, drops of dew

on webs,  

burnets bobbed in air—

like boats

against a billow—

clouds in a three-

legged dash.

 

Eyes of four are

needed in this era—

two to see us coming—

winking to acknowledge—

 

and a pair to see how

Amber Dawn is garbed on

Instagram—shorts pulled

to her hips, too soon

to boast of thighs,

 

& LaMarcus on his skateboard

in a tumble—headfirst

in the roses

that he never knew were there,

the scrape of thorns to

scream he’s still alive,

 

like we whenever

the cat has had

enough of our inertia on

the couch, gaping through a

glass that’s not the

window we haven’t wiped in

20 years.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

June 22, 2026

Photo of Slow Loris (The Pollination Project) 

The First Time

There’s a moment

when you’re grieving

you forget.

 

It’s the quarter-

second glint

 

when you peek up at

the solstice; your first

banana sundae

since it happened. The

stain that’s on your T-

shirt once you’re home—

it hadn’t been washed

since …

 

You’ll catch

yourself in chuckles

from the sitcom in her

cache—

this isn’t the time for Netflix—

that pang of guilt

that judges with its wig:

how dare you play

at happy.

 

The first time you’ll

awake it’s

slipped your mind—

albeit for a splinter of

a breath. Today we’re—

 

The first dream’s worst of

all. Your belovѐd

lives & waits

upon a bench

down by the brook. The

apogee of hair still

there. Every wing of

bird is lingering

with her. You have to recall the

one that is her namesake:

 

the lark we christened Barbra.

 

You remember she dropped the

e—between the 2nd

b & r. It never makes a sound

so what’s the point? What you

can’t elicit—even by a

welling in the iris—

is how it takes to heaven—

 

the instant twigs

beneath your shoe are

cracked in two.

 

This is a poem of bones

and not of beauty.

How brittle they become

once the marrow’s

been usurped. A snap 

that’s not forsaken

despite the volume set

to max on her favourite

song. You put one foot past

the other but not in

dance. For how can you

think to frolic? You’re

only wiping dishes—the plate on

which she slurped her

final crumbs, while you stood

amid the gloam & feigned a smile.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

June 20, 2026 

photo by Jose Luis Pelaez / Getty Images 

The Weather Guy’s a Liar

“Partly cloudy”

doesn’t cut it.

The sky is in one hundred

thousand moods.

Saying it needs Zyprexa

would be meiosis.

Everything’s understated.

It’s pouring pups &

kittens when it’s not.

More like danes & seals.

 

Have you ever

heard its bark? Not the dog

I mean the seal—

underneath the Big

Top when the circus still

had creatures great &

small. Big is never

massive in Manhattan.

We’d look like Lilliputians

down in London. Of course I mean

Kentucky. Its festival honours

the life of Colonel

Sanders. How he made it

past a corporal

I’ll never know. Raining

down the secrets

which are eleven

spices strong.

 

I’ve forgotten about the

bark. Sounds like

whooping cough.

Watch me pour some

Buckley’s against a

tree. Of course it’s under

the weather—who isn’t?

Waving its fecund fingers

in the gale. Thunder’s a

shocking way to

say hello. Talk about over-

kill.

 

As for me, I’ll be drenched

the very moment

that I furl in my umbrella

like a sail. Mischievous

miasmic cloud,

a boy who dams the

hose out in

the garden, releases his

pinching vise-grip

while you gaze into 

its chasm

like there’s nothing that

is coming down the pipe,

 

a rumble to mimic

hunger, or a thirst that’s

always teased and

seldom quenched.

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

June 18, 2026

still from Weatherman starring Keegan-Michael Key (directed by Joss Whedon).

The Leaf Blower

Bro has got

his blower out

again. It rages

like a Harley a

mote away. I wager that

he waits until

I’ve tallied the final

ewe

 

before he’s revving up

his demon once again.

 

5:55

a.m. is no man’s land.

The night

begets its slumber.

The dawn

before its yawn

to cue its shift.

Calm’s unwritten

law & understanding.

 

He’ll do anything to

breed my aggravation.

Envisages the

clenching of my

teeth & promptly chuckles.

My dental bill’s been

doubled since he moved into

his hovel next to mine.

I can hardly

wait till winter when

he’s mulching half a nano-

gram of snow—showing

off his raucous

Toro Max.

 

I will pay him

back some day.

Find out if he

listens to Zamfir.

Blast my AC/DC

in his direction—shatter

his fucking pan flute

like it’s glass.

 

His socks will step on

splinters, the ones he buys in

bulk from Dollar Tree.

He’ll rue the day

he cheaped on plastic

muffs. Hell will toll its bells.

A cacophony

that will haunt him

while he’s googling for

the nearest mausoleum,

as if its walls

are never thumped on from

within, as if the corpses are

reposed in contemplation,

blissed by a

slinking mouse who’s

just a whisker from

their drawers.

Andreas Gripp

June 18, 2026

photo by Trevor Wallace 

Liebestraum, or If Babar was a Bard

If elephants were as smart as

you maintain, they’d have authored

poetry.

 

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

wrote they weep. Grieve a death

as much as we. If so,

where are the poignant

elegies for their forebears?

Where are their lamentations

à la Job & Jeremiah?

 

I’ve witnessed the curl of

trunks, a nose up like a cobra

poised to strike—

but innocuous in its stead,

sloshing all the children

not with venom,

but the spray of a water

gun. They’re capable having

fun, and a memory second to

none. But none of this is poetry.

 

It’s not like they’re lacking

fodder for a verse. They’ll

leap like a pogo stick—

whenever there’s a mouse.

Failing to take to the

sky with their mammoth ears—

Dumbo be damned for his lies.

 

Well before the donkeys

interloped,

we’d pin tails on

pachyderms.

Imagine being supplanted

by a jackass.

They know so much of

hardship—yet where is the

sombre ode

bereaving tusks?

Ivory raped for Liszt’s

piano nocturne?

 

The elephant’s call is brass.

It is they who inspired the

trumpet. The thunder of their

steps a booming drum.

I know if I  lost all the kudos

I’d scrawl a poem.

 

If they were as wise as

Masson claims, a part of the

brain would not be hippo-

campus—for their rival at

the muddy saloon.

They’d have at least

put out a chapbook. Yet there isn’t

even a meagre

limerick, as if a shimmer

from their tear ducts

says it all.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

June 15, 2026

RF Photograph