{"id":296,"date":"2014-01-17T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-18T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=296"},"modified":"2014-01-17T23:00:07","modified_gmt":"2014-01-18T04:00:07","slug":"shell-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=296","title":{"rendered":"Shell Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m walking in the city with my lobster pal.
\nRagged Claws (after T.S.) always draws
\nbemused stares, and an occasional passerby
\nwill stop to ask why he’s green instead of red.
\nThis upsets the poor creature to no end.
\nHe blanches to think of friends and acquaintances
\nwho’ve been broken, buttered and consumed.
\nBad enough to live one’s life skulking for garbage
\non the ocean floor. But to be hunted, scalded, eaten,
\nwas a fate no creature deserved. He calls all humans
\n"Quasi’s," for Laughton’s magnificent boiling weaponry.
\nWe stop at the occasional store window,
\nmove quickly by pet shops and restaurants,
\nproceeding toward the Museum of Natural History,
\nwhere he’s pledged a shift to protest the new exhibit,
\n"The History of Deep Sea Fishing in New England."
\nAfter that, we’ll get takeout Chinese and head home.
\nAnd tonight, again, I will try to extract his d.n.a.
\nin my fervent attempt to grow a claw of my own,
\nfollowing my lifelong dream of a career in the WWF.
\nI’ll call myself Super Snapper, and no hissing sheik,
\nsix-hundred pound farm boy or dog faced muscleman
\nwill withstand the power of my terrible shell.
\nI envision a red cape, a hood with tentacles,
\nand, in the corner, my crustacean friend,
\negging me on with the frantic wavings
\nof his own viselike appendages.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m walking in the city with my lobster pal. Ragged Claws (after T.S.) always draws bemused stares, and an occasional passerby will stop to ask why he’s green instead of red. This upsets the poor … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[3,4],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem-2","tag-poem","tag-poetry-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2561,"url":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=2561","url_meta":{"origin":296,"position":0},"title":"Hawk Spa","author":"Rick Young","date":"September 26, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Thrown open are the windows and fresh banana peels to the crows! The hawk has paid a visit. After rains he frequently shows up at the top of the tallest tree outside my window, where, first, he dries, sitting like a block, until, shaking, he begins to unruffle. The branch\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poem"","block_context":{"text":"Poem","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?cat=16"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":585,"url":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=585","url_meta":{"origin":296,"position":1},"title":"Land of Retirement","author":"Rick Young","date":"June 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I awoke at two a.m., my reading light still on, a book about the chupacabra of Boca Raton lay open on my chest; I was a fan of science fiction, the monsters of the southern hemisphere my new addiction. 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Bill Singer was a righty slinger, mostly on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poem"","block_context":{"text":"Poem","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?cat=16"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1987,"url":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?p=1987","url_meta":{"origin":296,"position":4},"title":"Their Appointed Rounds","author":"Rick Young","date":"August 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Stamp out the old post office. Bring back the pony express. Kidnap\u00a0the corner mailbox. He'll stop this mail-in mess. Stand in line and vote in person. Otherwise it's ripe for fraud. Absentee ballots outside Florida are an attempt to hurt god. 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In this next two hours, he could have his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poem"","block_context":{"text":"Poem","link":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/?cat=16"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}