Strangled Darlings

“You could call your book of poetry “Strangled Darlings,” Miles the packrat said to Harold the Ghost, lifting his right paw to wash the dust off the tuft of hair that sprouted between his ears like a want to be Mohawk.

Harold, proud that he had completed his final draft of his final poem for his first book ever just laughed. “Oh Miles,” he said, “You’re such a jokester.”

Unfortunately, Miles wasn’t joking. He thought it was the perfect title for the most wretched book of poems he had ever read, and he considered himself to be a well-educated poet, a fan of E. E. Cummings, Robens Napolitan, William Carlos Williams, Sandra Rasor, Mary Oliver, Tom Kramer, Maya Angelou, Rhoda Sanford, Edwin Arlington Robinson, DaNae Aguirre, Billy Collins, Jackie Henrion, Robert Hayden, Jan Sarchio, William Shakespeare, Lorna Summers, Sage Francis, Sandy Lamson, Robert Frost, Karen Seashore, Gwendolyn Brooks, Winter Bennet, William Butler Yeats, Adrian, Shann Ray, Rebecca Gordon, Renee D'Auost, Rita Dove, Jonathan Johnson (too name but a few), and of course, a faithful follower of Desiree Aguirre.

Harold, however, believed that his poems would vindicate his life, and in fact, his subsequent death, which wasn’t a strangling, but rather, an off with your head, thank you very much, and then, off with the money. Of course, the murderers didn’t get a cent, so sad for them, and Harold, alas, was now a virtually headless ghost.

Fortunately, Harold met Miles the pack rat in the old cabin on Marijuana knob, where the dastardly deed had been accomplished. Miles, an electronic and computer genius, had in fact, managed Harold’s account and currently, as Miles liked to say, they were in the green. Really, Miles thought, it was easier to let Harold have his poetic fantasies. It left Miles time to surf the net and pursue his passions, shopping on EBay and trying to locate Harold’s former, living wife, Lilith—the woman who possibly murdered him.

Of course, Miles mused, if Harold was writing her love poetry back then, he completely understood why she would off him.