the engineer does not think of her coffee/as “hot”/but rather “cooling”/and not as “coffee”/but as a mixture of water/and ground bean byproduct/and 3ml of dairy extract somewhat denser than whole milk/and an unmeasured squirt of blue agave syrup/with a specific gravity greater than the rest of the mix/that has a certain insolubility such/that her drink will become sweeter with successive swallows/which is exquisite
her bed partner/lacking the background that includes terms like “threshold limits”/and “asymptotic approach”/and “under the metallurgical dome”/and “thevenin equivalent circuit”/and “chi-squared smoothing function”/enjoys HER hot coffee in a different way
hers is a magic vitalizing elixir/an alignment of planets and constellations/yum
the partners are good together/in a way not easily described in words
i joined the national workforce at the age of fifteen/and so have paid into social security for more than fifty years
i have worked almost a year for the u s postal service, america’s largest employer
i worked an aggregate nine years for three different healthcare systems, wrangling spreadsheets
i have worked at the family business my grandmother’s husband started/and later for my stepbrother/and later yet for my stepfather
i have been a warehouseman and a substitute teacher and a graphics designer and a data processor and a front desk night clerk and an office manager and a restaurant host/cashier and an administrative vice president
lately I’ve been a prep cook mostly slicing tomatoes and onions and portioning refried beans
consequently my dreams sometimes take hold/in a workplace setting/and last night was one such
in the dream i had come back to work after a leave of absence/and was told to look around
and my old and presumably reinstated office space/was engulfed in stuffed file folders/and the desktop computer i had used was gone
and a strange lady nearby saw my aghast expression/and said “don’t worry, this is temporary”
then a bigshot-looking blustery guy commanded me to find him a round office ASAP
and I looked in vain upstairs and down
then a guy dressed for golf with a bronzed suntan peeked around a doorway and seeing me asked me how my GOLF GAME was and suggested that we blow this pop stand and go to meet the tee time he’d arranged so he could check out my GOLF GAME
and i knew suddenly that a) this guy was powerful b) if i had a good GOLF GAME i could write my own ticket c) the firm was flying false colors as far as company mission went d) my GOLF GAME would be as good as my dream made it–hey, e) this was a dream.
i shuffled out of bed and to the bathroom/to take care of an old man’s business/and saw i had a good hour before the alarm
so I tried to pick up on the dream where it left off/but of course that rarely happens
and I was never able to clean house/with that corrupt company, alas
the girl-dog next door is sweet nala/she has close-cropped strawgold hair/and light-milk-chocolate eyes/a pushed-in puggy face/a nose-wiping tongue/and on her short legs she has sidewalk-skittery clawpaws
and when my neighbor brings her out/and i am out there too/nala doesn’t know what to do/because she is so shy but also desperate for the love of every human being available/so she looks up at me with her pleading face/but backpedals when i extend a hand
when I walk away she strains to come after me/if i stand there long enough she jumps up/ putting her clawpaws just above my knee
and finally i get to scratch her under the collar/and her eyes almost roll up
and then i must go about my business/despite sweet nala’s eyes
Addictive personalities make plans/That are subject to constant revision. I, who am addicted/to casino gambling
And overeating, had originally planned/To spend an hour doing household chores/And then hoofing it to Carl’s Jr. for an only slightly unhealthy breakfast,/And then hopskipjumping to PIP Coffee & Clay,/There to work on my wheel-throwing technique, find myself/At a dive bar called the Hideaway Lounge Sportsbar & Grill, digesting/Eggs over easy, two sausage links,/sourdough toast, crispy hash browns,/And an Irish Coffee heavily laced/With Jameson’s Irish Whiskey and a special/Vanilla-enhanced version of Bailey’s Irish Cream.
I will leave after I have finished/The bottle of Budweiser I now ingest/And the ten ounces or so of chaser-water.
If I were an alcoholic, I would be on my way to big trouble today.
Praise be, Alcohol is not my nemesis, although/In my more horrific gambling misadventures,/Alcohol has certainly been an unindicted co-conspirator/Because it impairs judgment/And loosens inhibitions.
But the demonic imp with whom I wrestle,/The at-risk factor that will do me in if I let it,/The deadly Wanna that is my direst character flaw,/Is the glittery temptress, Mademoiselle Chance.
I have had twisted, ghastly sex with Her/An awful number of times/And with the deep consequences of loss and grief/In tragic disproportion/To the delights She offers.
I left Her standing at the altar of my undoing/About two and a half years ago.
I hope never to see Her again, even on my deathbed.
on yr riddar scream/is a brite bliph obsceme/that tills you that some theme is rung//that sum (ting) is combing/en war (ping) whilst roaming/to strang gull ye song 4 it’s stung
the bliph (ping pong ping)/’s gid (ting) clothes err (ting ting)/n obliter8 (ting) fayth n gladness/yr ayes (ping ping) why den/yr hart (ting ting) fry ten/yr dee send (ting ping ping)/ into maaaaAAAA*
somewhere in our heads we think primitively about the sun.
part of us thinks it is taking a break when it sets. that it is a colder sun in winter, and it cranks up the knob in summer. that it burns. that it is a fire up above us.
even so, a little part of most of us knows that the sun is not on fire, that what seems like burning is actually a nuclear-fusion explosion in a celestial body so huge that its gravity keeps it self-contained and convecting.
a few of us even know that the sun is never above us, that it is always below us, at the bottom of our local gravity well. our words “below” and “above” were invented when space and time was misunderstood, and the inertia of our languages will always hamper our thinking.
there is also the matter of our brains, forged over millennia to meet survival challenges. the next time you see unexpected movement at the edge of your peripheral vision, “out of the corner of your eye” as we primitively put it, you will probably get a microjolt of fear until you are convinced you are not being threatened, and you may behave manically until your blood chemistry re-normalizes.
this is all part of your Great Human Adventure, at the most intimate level, you using your homefired primitive tools to make sophisticated sense out of the life you have, and making the life you have a better one through the thousands of decisions and choices and observations you make every day.
one word of exquisite usefulness I commend to your attention:
enjoyment.
en joy ment.
an involvement with J O Y.
friend, may you know it well, and have it well within you.
Postscript: There is such a thing as too close a shave, even for the sake of a Bad Pun, a play on the ancient saying “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” It took about fifteen minutes to staunch this patch of skin.
long ago our skeletons/were mere calcium deposits on cartilage/but the construction crew brought them to usefulness/in less than a year
and aligned with the spine were esophagus and heart/and twin kidneys singing a riversong/to bilateral symmetry
the bisected and tri-lobed brain/grew a mini-mall of services/to motivate and control and evaluate
and nonhuman migrant workers/were installed in cells/to process oxygen and nutrients
and finally we were brought/from the inside out/innards and all
and there were surprises in every package of us
and we grew more surprises at every stage
(thank heaven and goodness and reality/for the good surprises/and unthank the cruelty of harsh pranks of nature and circumstance/for those surprises that punch and fell)
the best we can do is gird our innards for the wars of acquisition and maintenance and priority
One with Clay, Image and Text 