Cabinet of Oddities
by Bill Stinson
When the last pint’s been drained
And the customers fled,
The tap room falls silent,
And the front light turns red.
It’s time to reflect
From the corner of your eye,
Did something just move?
Or maybe I’m high?
But The Pour Farm is new!
Surely free from lost souls.
So how to explain
These implausible trolls?
The six tales that follow
Recount visitations
Of pour farming sorts
Seeking astral libations.
An audit of oddities
To warn and instruct
(Still, the spectre of evidence
Suggests that we’re fucked.)
So consider these hazards
When you chill at the bar,
And shelter your spirits
From exploits bizarre.
​
​
ONE
When the Dolls Fell
October 31, 2019
​
Creepy dolls are a thing
And they don’t give a damn.
So we signed up two dolls
To help with the Slam.
Hanging by strings
The trick was all set.
The butt of a joke
But no safety net!
So crashing they fell
Onto porcelain knees.
The curse is now doubled;
Their jagged edge seized.
​
Though we saved the old dolls
From Elmer’s Barn fair,
We then broke their legs,
And now here dwells their glare.
​
​
TWO
When the Glass Broke
(sometime in 2020)
​
Filling three pints at once
With an effortless hand
A backflip, an axel,
A beer-foot-handstand,
The publican dance
Is a worthy affront
To synchronized swimming
And the jet skiing stunt.
With one at the tap:
It’s a study of grace –
The confident knuckler’s
methodical pace.
With two at the tap:
Pitchers dodge, weave, and bob
To fling the right beers
To the hankering mob.
With three at the tap:
You’d better hang on.
Their fastball is fired
Like a drunken photon.
But the fine-tuned machine
Of bartender perfection
Broke down one fine day
With ferocious inflection.
Broken pint glasses
Growlers ashatter
Shards on the floor
Antimatter.
The epic upheaval
Caused a blot on the bar,
Blood in the floor drain,
A trip to the ER.
​
The very next day
When the cyclone was done,
The bartenders
Retended their bar with aplomb.
Like nothing happened.
​
​
THREE
When the Tree Menaced
Spring, 2021
​
Forty-five feet up
In a white pine not far from the deck
A broken limb teeters in near perfect balance
Like a tightrope walker’s pole.
“You got a widow maker up there.”
It withstood
The hardscrabble storm of October ‘17
And a half dozen nor’easters since.
Now primed to club the earth
At the slightest provocation.
​
​
FOUR
When the Brewery Wasn’t Here
2019
​
Perhaps the brewery was built
On top of an Indian burying ground.
That would explain a lot.
Perhaps the brewery was built
At the site of an alien abduction.
That would explain a lot.
Actually, the brewery was built
Where minks were raised in cages in the 1950s.
That might explain a few things.
​
​
FIVE
When the Cows Crowed
Sometime in 2020
​
On a run down Middle Road
To clear out the brain
To the place where the friendly herd
Chows down our spent grain,
At Sunnyside Farm,
Cows were making quite a fuss –
Mooing, groaning, calling,
Clearly something to discuss.
The normally quiet heifers
Caused me to scratch my head,
Could there be a weirdo fungus
In the batch the cows were fed?
Then past the sign of Sunnyside,
I upped the running pace.
Wait, did I hear an echo
Of the noisy crowd’s deep bass?
The Chadwick cows, just up the road,
Another stoic crew,
Were likewise crowing loudly
Their own deftly coded moo.
Though the better of a mile
Stood between the two cow factions
They clearly shared a viewpoint
Of developing infractions.
​
In charge of field ops and grain,
The captain Chadwick wailer,
Called out to warn the Sunnysides:
Now six head on the trailer!
When I drive by slaughterhouse
Or pass the grocery store,
I think about the Chadwick cows,
And the day they went to war.
​
​
SIX
When Blood Dripped from the Cold Room Ceiling
October 14, 2021
​
Ask me sometime.
I am not shitting you.
