Here’s another excerpt from Sleepytime Cemetery (available, remember, from Black Scat Books). An attempted suicide turns to slapstick, all in ABAB quatrains. This is how it begins…

THE RAZOR

I laid a razor at my wrist,
So I would be no more.
I closed my eyes, and sneezed, and missed,
And dropped it on the floor.

I heard it fall; I heard a ping;
And yet the floor was bare.
I couldn’t find the pesky thing,
It wasn’t anywhere.

I got down on my hands and knees
And felt along the ground.
I found a nickel and some keys,
But that was all I found.

It might have fallen in a crack,
And so be out of sight.
So I arose, and stretched my back,
And went to get a light.

I fetched a flashlight, flipped the switch,
And tried to trace the fall.
I found the blade within a niche
Between the floor and wall.