-By Orv Alveshere-
Faded red grainery ninety years old has tilted,
Harvest grain sold in town so it may feel it’s been jilted.
Pockmarked from errant baseballs thrown by impatient youth.
Outlived it’s usefulness was a sad heritage truth.
Ninety feet by forty with 3 divided grain bins.
One day of reckoning: like tales of outlaw break-ins!
If only we had made extra tight security fences…
Five 1-shot deals came to swiftly clog nasal senses.
Not every animal that enters on four legs
Is a horse or critter. Some smell worse than rotten eggs!
Armed and dangerous as ev’ry living being knows,
They say we’d need to hold our nose while we burned our clothes.
Mosquitoes and skunks had a boarding pass on Noah’s Ark.
Lord have mercy, why, has always been a question mark?
*Mercaptan spray keeps men’s and dog’s mind and logic bent.
Created creatures, yes, but I’d dispute they’re heaven sent.
The whole fam’ly of skunks moved under our grainery one day.
We refused to confront them for mortal fear of foul play.
Locked the dog in the barn. Nothing learned last time he sparred
With his attitude, dutifully being the homestead guard.
Multiple bathings and swims in the slough were no use.
Desperate, we added gallons of tomato juice.
Under the grainery we placed lights. Go back to your dens.
Poked it with a long stick, left it lit…seemed to make sense.
That ruse may avoid the nauseating conundrum.
Bold encroachment, combatants taunt, our life’s not humdrum.
Mortal’s mortal, morbid fear gave ponderous moments.
Don’t shoot! Don’t get them P-Oed, that standoff foments.
Odoriferous occasion, worthy opponents, monitor we must.
Obnoxious outlaws offspring, more 1-shot deals we’d mistrust.
Grainery on the knoll, backyard invasion, we’re at loose ends.
Were we impolite? Fright or fight? Tense, but small percents.
Sight of near disaster, forceful evictions, we’d think,
Would cause those quick tempered beasts to raise a stink.
You’re feeling our pain. No safe way to check if they’ve checked out.
Telling more than I know, not checking a striped kitty’s spout.
Those nocturnal animals hated that infernal light,
Cowardly dragged their tails out under cover of night.
Thinking back decades, did we get to collect any rent?
NO! Whole stinking fam’ly left with out paying a scent!
- *Mercaptan, their chemical, related to mace, sulfur family
© Orv Alveshere, Copyright 1995, rewrite 2013 All rights reserved
