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Monthly Archives: September 2024

the Muse isn’t always a woman/it’s often a Voice in your head/a powerful Strength you can summon/if you let yourself be so Led

ignore it at peril. Engagement/is locked in by seeing a Truth/as in Facing the source of enragement/or owning an Action uncouth

the Universe isn’t a puzzle/that’s constantly trying to Trick you/rabidity happens. A muzzle/applied may make Happenstance pick you

and give you adventures of Making/and show where may comrade or Lover be/take Ink or Pure Thought or Heart Breaking/and voyage on seas of Discovery

In order to walk in the Valley/And not be burnt crispy like bacon/You can stride and be bold/Where it’s Climate Controlled/And keep track of the steps you have taken

The Mall where they sell youth and tally-/Ho Lasses and Lads Game’s Afoot/Expressing your passion/With high crimes of fashion/And studies in vellum and soot

The Mall where the old are invisible/Or extras like Gramps One and Two/Where hypervitality’s/No abnormality/But greyheads are chimps in a zoo

Yet I do my Mall Walk and rally/My spirit to Dignified-Stately/And no one to vex if/I slip out the exit/And win introversion innately

Afterword: The phenomenon of the Shopping Mall seems to be on the wane, but Scottsdale Fashion Square, where I do my mall walking, it being easy for me to reach via public transportation, still seems to be bustling. But I do sometimes feel like the answer to “What’s Wrong with This Picture?” when I go there. With my Goodwill clothing and old-age countenance I am literally unfashionable.

for a kid playing pinball a flipper’s the way

a deft pinball wizard keeps pinballs in play

and flipper’s a mammal who swims like a fish

and chattered on tv bout mid-sixtyish

when sweat makes the equity soar for the fixer

she flips for liquidity (primo elixir)

an egg over easy a coin in the air

take two different flippers who flip with a flair

but one wondrous flipper this year became known

as the Greatest Of All Time: the Gymnast, Simone.

The Los Angeles Dodger

Leans on his bat as if it is a crutch

Then straightens and strolls to the batter’s box and takes his picture-perfect stance

And on the first pitch owns the New York Met who threw him an uncutting cutter, parabolizing the ball into the left-field upper deck

****

On the publicity pamphlet for the upcoming vote the city’s Chamber of Commerce had written an 800-word syllogism-laced argument in favor

Of Proposition 69 which ironically would outlaw simultaneous consensual oral sex between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM

On the basis that doing so flouted certain sacrosanct societal norms and/or cultural proprieties

And implied that the bodies of citizens belonged to themselves

you start your day with sumatran coffee purchased from a kroger-owned grocery store filling the water well with water which came from a boxy blue machine within which you had placed your gallon jug and then inserted two twenty-five-cent coins called quarters because they are worth 1/4 of a dollar

you wait for a bus whose fare you will pay using an app on your motorola phone which enabled you to load fifty dollars of fare from your bank account to be siphoned away two dollars at a time

at work you fill cambros with tomatoes and then soak the tomatoes with anti-bacterial veggie spray and drain the cambros and take all but one on a cart to the walkin kept below 42° F and take the one remaining to your work station and ram the tomatoes one at a time through the ten-bladed hand slicer and you keep filling trays with tomatoes to be used for fajitas or sandwiches to be eaten by airport diners

the workers get a free lunch consisting of all the minichilidogs and fries they care to eat and a choice of lemonade or lunch for the beverage

you get off at the 30th St stop so you can get cheap dinner stuff at the store and sure enough they have a santa fe salad reduced to $3.18 and a pack of ten boneless pork chops about 3/16 of an inch thick for $10.00

and you cook up four of the chops intending to eat two with applesauce but of course you eat three and put the remaining one in a sandwich bag for the fridge and the remaining six uncooked ones in a freezer bag for the freezer

you check your fitbit and it says 11,267 steps so you don’t have to go back out which is good because you are beat

and you read some about an adventure of lord peter wimsey who disguised as the copy-writer mr death bredon has returned to the copy-runner ginger a slingshot after ascertaining that it had been wiped clean of fingerprints

and then you write a long rambler of a prosesque poem going into excruciating detail about mundane quotidian consumption of resources and you tag it with your name and poetry and consumption and kroger and sumatran coffee and motorola and publish it on wordpress and share it on facebook and put your phone on your nightstand and turn out the shop light and wait for drowsiness

to consume you

i certainly dig/the garnishy sprig/that sits on the edge of the plate

in restaurants fine/with twelve-dollar wine/a nice place to go with a date

but wait that’s the past/i now look aghast/and find that sauce-dribbling is trendy

and wine will not flow/unless you can show/a wallet two-hundred-bucks spendy

so switch your devour/to that happy hour/that has tasty bar food for cheap

but don’t be too sparsely/about that good parsley/that good produce sections still keep

There is a Typo Goddess

And her name is Teh

And it is said that She bewitched the minor deity known as Autocorrect

Because we tappitytaptappers could no longer inadvertently evoke Her name

And so it is that now

We’re not the free-spirited folk we we’re

And Autocorrect does not live up to it’s name

Should rather be cauld Altercorrect

Or Autocorrupt

Or AutoBeAshamedOfIt’self

Ah we’ll

Say law vee

Half a nice day yaw

Lay those bricks and crunch those numbers

Ease a patient’s constant pain

Clear debris where it encumbers

Help an addict to refrain

Pick a crop in blazing hot light

Guard an outpost in the gloom

Flip the eggs adjust the spotlight

Take the guest’s bags to her room

Coffee’s brewing–thank baristas

Bus ride home safe–thank the drivers

Awesome clothes–thank fashionistas

Thank YOU, Movers, Shakers, Strivers!

***

Today is the first Monday in September, making it Labor Day in the United States of America. It is my day off from paycheck-earning work, but I have just labored comfortably in the bedroom of my apartment to wring a handful of rhyming job descriptions from my morning-fuzzy brain. It was fun work, done for the pleasure of playing with words and sending a subtle love letter to workers of all stripes into the world, including you, whatever you do, for our most important labor is the vital job of making ourselves into better people.

(to Brenda Anna)

the doc lulled me then

twist-snapped my head. a

ver

teb

ral

ar

pejh

jhee

oh!

Afterword: this faux haiku is based on a doctor’s visit I’d had over twenty years ago, a first visit with a doctor in my PPO network. I had reported neck problems of pain and severely limited range of motion. He had me lie face- up on the examining table and positioned himself behind my head, gently rocking my head as if it were a bowling ball, saying a few lulling words in a monotonous voice, and just as I became 100% relaxed he quick-as-lightning twisted my head at least 75 degrees. My upper vertebrae crepitated big time, both audibly and tactilely. Flash forward to about an hour ago, and the sudden remembrance of that event, and I wondering if I could synopsize it in seventeen syllables with the last two words being “vertebral arpeggio.” That musing turned into what you have just read.

life/hive life/the vile defile/the child denial/vilification informed by style/guile

time/climb time/the trial decrial/the tiled parietal/ossification with viaduct bile/aisle

here is your life here is your time preheat and bake with twists of lime and meet defeat as tenured strife and victory’s continued life