Two Hungry Lions Come Upon an

 Elephant About to Eat Marijuana

Hey, Elephant. How ya doing? We see you enjoying

a ganja snack. Mind if we claw some of it back?

We’re lions, you see, so it goes against the grain

of our nature to stand idly by watching you eat

your cannabis and listening to you smack your lips.

In fact, it kinda ticks us off. We consider it rude and

anti-social that you refuse to be jovial and don’t wanna

share your marijuana. Such inhospitality sets our minds

ill at ease and actually gives us panic attacks. So Elephant,

do heed my note of urgent warning, for I’m not playing:

We, the Kings of Beasts, would rather jump on that tasty

sativa and take it down like a juicy zebra. Even now our

blood runs hot and our paws strain in the blocks with all

we got not to charge at you. No offense. I’m just saying

it’s rough being a lion always out looking to slay things.

ELEPHANT REPLIES

 Now look here Lions. I worked hard for this marijuana.

 Under the blazing African sun on the Savanna I stood

 with great patience shading this cannabis plant when it

 was trying to grow in spite of mosquitoes, bees and ants.

 And when all those insects crawled and flew around

 I furiously flapped my massive ears, dashing them to

 the ground where, using my mighty elephant feet, I

 ground them into bug meat. Now you’re telling me

 you feel you deserve a big piece of my ganja treat?

THE LIONS TAKE A MENACING STEP FORWARD

Okay, Elephant. We get your drift and take your point.

But wouldn’t it be decadent and time not well-spent

If you caused great resentment by eating all the buds?

You shouldn’t hesitate to share with chums! We don’t

want to get into a scrum that could lead into a bloody

outcome when all we need is a few crumbs of your

cannabis sativa to make us so much more agreeable.

It’s rough out here. We’re just mellow lions chillin and

trying to get by. Sure we’d like to cop a buzz and get high.

ELEPHANT CRIES OUT

 I sprayed water on this cannabis from my trunk during

 shriveling droughts so it wouldn’t stunt and I charged at

 hippies who came to pick it on their marijuana hunts. So

 to you who wish to eat it now I say Harumph! Harumph!

Elephant grows indignant at this point. Her huge nose gets

all out of joint. Rearing up on her hind legs, she throws her

trunk back oe’r her head and trumpets her acute distress

for miles across the Africa plain: ROAWRR! and ROAWRR!

THE LIONS TAKE ANOTHER MENACING STEP FORWARD

Elephant, we’re not philosophers — we’re carnivores and

we salivate. This is why we have to rule out debate. So now

we’re going to charge at you and eat that ganja at your feet.

ELEPHANT CRIES OUT AGAIN

 Harumph! Harumph! ROAWRR! ROAWRR!

A Nebraskan Visits Colorado

By Craig Pugh

I told my Ma and I told my Pa I’m tired of this here Omaha.

Denver, Denver is the show. That is where I want to go.

They got legal weed out there people say is beyond compare.

Ma and Pa said “Have you lost your mind? Stay away from it!”

I replied: “Are you kidding me? Have you ever tried that shit?

It’s fantastic. Lifts your spirits, calms your nerves, helps you

through life’s tight curves.” Ma and Pa just wrung their hands and

cried: “Oh boy of ours. We thought we raised you to know better!”

Then they really sounded the alarm. Pa said: “Sonny Boy, we only

want joy for you but at this minute we’ve got chores to do and

you’re needed on the farm. Once we get the corn crop in we

figured you’d drive to Lincoln and Husker-up with Go Big Red!

I just shook my head. Lincoln? I remember from history that he

famously debated Horace Greeley who said: “Go West young man.”

I told this to my parents and said they couldn’t restrain me with a lariat,

ending with: “Don’t worry. I’ll come back. If I don’t I’ll write you a letter.”

Walked out to Interstate Eighty on my thumb, got a ride with a fellow

cannabis pilgrim driving from Missouri. He said: “I’m headed to Denver

to smoke me some good weed” to which I replied: “Amen, Brother,

that’s what we need!” He had a joint and I had one, too; and after we

smoked ‘em up I shut my eyes for a few and I woke up in Denver town.

Man oh man, smell that mountain air! Smells like skunk buds

everywhere. Walked into my first shop. Oh my God. Now I know

what heaven looks like. I thought I was in the jungle though because

a Grape Ape got all in my business, claiming he was king of all the

cannabis sativas. He picked me up and threw me down and when

I hit the ground a White Rhino let out a blast of THC and ran over me.

When I came to I ate a banana. But it was kush. And I won’t beat around

the bush. That Banana Kush kicked me in the touché. The tangerines

were no better. They put me in a Tangerine Haze, which was a really

dreamy Neptunian phase of chilling out with little cupids flying about.

Next place featured Sour Tsunami, which was great for my anxiety

but in all honesty it rolled right over me. I held my breath and shut my

eyes as it took me down in a very deep dive but then it was like whoa –

I began seeing things I didn’t want to see. I told myself: By thunder!

Don’t let that tsunami drag you under! And when I crawled out I was

on Maui Wowie, a tropical island topped with pineapple candy and

a bouncy, creative high. I ain’t lying: I thought that was fine and dandy.

But then I went a step too far when I took a hit of Death Star, which

shot me past the moon and Mars and put me floating in space with

asteroids and shooting stars. That was a bit much for me. I’m content

to watch the galaxy through a telescope, which is what I hope to do

once I get over my ferocious buzz because I ended up in a crystal palace

where garden gnomes gave away free ice-cream cones topped with

capitate-stalked trichomes. I also ran into a Purple Alien. I thought he was

a fine fellow I could be friends with but that freaky-freak notched me to

the bow of Sagittarius who shot my arrow into a delirious place in my head.

Pineal gland? Brain stem? Cerebellum? Dunno. I’m no neurosurgeon.

I then thought I ought to get earthbound with edibles. Gummi bears and

chocolate? Sure, I like that stuff. But those edibles were just too incredible.

My head ended up in a washing machine set on spin cycle. That was when

I threw the towel in. Bottom line? I just wanted to get back to Nebraska:

good ol’, solid ol’, boring-ass Nebraska. Now I’m back home smoking gack

weed and watching corn grow. No, it’s not Denver, and it’s not fun, but I

do sit in Omaha wondering how people in Colorado get anything done!

I was very fortunate in June to be in Madison, Wisconsin with Nate Haban (facebook.com/nate.haben) of habanmediaworks.com

and Vern  (Veronica Noir Smash),   star of The Osipenko File screenplay I wrote featuring Major Svetlana Osipenko, NKVD Communist poster girl who ends up killing Stalin and freeing Russia from tyranny. She’s kooky. She’s kitschy. She’s a crazy vodka drunk, your big sister who runs with the wrong crowd but you love anyway. Oh, The Osipenko File is also a 420 comedy. And a musical. And a love story. And a political satire. Don’t worry. I’ve been doing this awhile. I make it all work out in one big glorious rousing romp through movie fantasy land.

John Boehner’s Growing Weed?!

As Speaker of the House and Head Louse in a crummy Congress

that criminalized cannabis he helped create the American Prison State.

I remember the not-fun of getting busted with dozens of guns

in my face and fifty cops tearing my house apart. I kid you not. Why,

it took four of them just to go through my wife’s underwear drawer

and three more to throw all my military medals on the floor. Really?

Four plants under a basement light and I’m looking at three-to-five

in the state penitentiary. Seriously? Just because I live in Nebraska

and in many states people can buy six plants and grow them for free?

I never mugged anyone, robbed a bank, burgled a home or stuck a gun

in someone’s face.  All I did was grow some weed. That’s what kept me off

the streets. I did society a favor. No bar-hopping or drunk-driving for me.

But obviously I failed to appreciate the severity of the charge: “Manufacture

with intent to distribute.” What the heck! Four plants and they make it sound

like I’m cooking meth for half the town and need a task force to take me down.

Man, American lawmakers are so full of bullshit and hypocrisy. They never stop

getting rich off chumps like you and me. Then they have the temerity to say

we live in the land of the free. But truly, I almost lost my mind the other day

when I turned on the TV and heard about John Boehner growing weed.

Which is what he and his jerk-friends in Washington threw me in jail for!

Craig Pugh is the author of “Ganja Tales,” a volume of nine marijuana short stories published

in 2000, and three cannabis screenplays. A former Air Force journalist for twelve years, he was

twice named the top feature writer in the U. S. Government. He was also a city hall reporter

for the Longview, Texas, News-Journal, as well as a university writing instructor. A working poet

with more than a hundred poems, he has an English M.A. and lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where

all marijuana is illegal.

Living in The Land of the Gun

 By Craig Pugh

 What’s it like living in the Land of the Gun?

Let me tell you right now: not much fun!

I mean, some days it feels like everyone’s

got one. What the heck are they all protecting

themselves from — each other? C’mon, man!

Don’t we have police officers and sheriffs for

that? I scratch my head and wonder: Is this

really the Right Wing’s version of freedom in

the USA in twenty-eighteen? Because this is

a nightmare, not a dream, a culture where nuts

strut about with assault rifles and guns while

we citizens get slaughtered by the hundreds

(adults at concerts, children in schools) because

traitors in congress bow down to NRA fools.

This American culture with men spewing death

and toxic masculinity is so bad, so discouraging.

Gun nuts try and pass it off as normalcy. Really?

If this were true I’d have to give up on humanity.

It’s hard to stay positive and not let the politicians

make me believe in their sick vision of protecting

the second amendment at all costs, even if that

means I have to die for it and you do, too. Look.

Christians don’t own guns. Neither do they run

around killing shit. Did Jesus have one? No.

Now do me a favor: don’t tell me I need one.

I am a child of God, an angel who temporarily

set his wings aside to experience life on earth

with all its pain and sadness, its joy and mirth.  

I came from love and will return to love. While

here I try my best to be a healthy cell in the body

of humanity. I believe that’s what God wants of me.

I don’t know what else to tell you except that

it would come as no surprise to me at all if one

day I got shot by a nut with a gun simply because

I had the great misfortune to be born American.

It’s like that, you see, in The Land of the Gun where

we walking dead keep a gallows sense of humor

and grim perspectives on our mortality because our

so-called leaders made a mockery of public safety

along with every word our Founding Fathers wrote.

In fact, our House of Representatives is a joke that

turns children into targets to be filled with bullet holes.

Oh, the tears in the eyes of the twenty Newton children

who knew they were going to die as they stared terrified

at Adam Lanza’s assault rifle! They cried so hard, held

out their little arms for mommy and daddy as the bullets

tore them in two and cut them in half, shattered their skulls

and splattered their guts and brain matter on the walls.

Twenty lumps of dead flesh, blood running on the floor

and the monsters in the U. S. Senate did nothing at all.

Sorry kids. You gotta go. From Columbine to Parkland,

Maine to New Mexico. You all simply have to go. Why?

I already told you so! It’s the sacred second amendment.

How many times do I have to tell you how precious it is?

So now you know the feeling we who live in The Land of

the Gun have about being sacrificed to the real terrorist:

an angry white American male with an assault rifle. Life

means nothing here. Seriously, it’s just so much fun trying

to stay alive in America. Aren’t you glad you don’t live here?