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Monthly Archives: June 2025

how this came to be

June 23, 2025
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how this came to be

author

born gary wright bowers in the los angeles megalopolis in 1954/second child of harold price bowers sr. and the former jane paula householder/third child brian clemens followed in 1957/family moved to arizona in 1958

drew a portrait of his mother before he was three/first poems at age 7/first claywork also at 7/first sonnet in early 20s/first acrostic poem in 1987/100th sonnet in 2007/first sestina in 2008/second sestina in 2008

married 1988/one daughter born 1990/divorced 2011/estranged 2021

stockboy/assistant registrar/security guard and custodian/receiving clerk/warehouseman/office guy/office manager/administrative vice president/office administrator/graphics designer/data encoder/insurance administrator/analyst/newsletter editor/coordinator/substitute teacher/bookkeeper/front desk clerk/data entry operator/restaurant host & cashier/retiree/prep cook (list incomplete)

.

hair

yesterday the author took a boar’s-hair brush to his head and then took photos

.

poem

changed working title from “how this poem came to be” to the more comprehensive “how this came to be” and then thought and typed

His Infernal Majesty’s (Non)request, and Subsequent Request

June 22, 2025
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My hilarious poet friend Bill Campana, whom I mentioned a couple of posts ago, likes to experiment with photo editing. Unsolicited, he took a picture of me clownishly brandishing my deliberately-crazy hair, and did three takes wildly different from the already-wild original, and this one above is my favorite.

Bill has several books on Amazon. They are reasonably priced and fantastically cost-effective, mixing belly laughs, serious insights, and a zany perspective fine-tuned by brilliant wordsmithing. Please help alleviate the tragic underappreciativeness of Campaniana, and check him out pronto!!

Mug Squared

June 17, 2025
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Bill Campana, the Funniest Man on Earth

Mug Squared

My talented poet friend Bill

Holds a mug that I made for him. Will

He use it? You bet!

Mug on mug, no regret,

Caffeination’s his everyday thrill.

.

Long ago Bill Campana, pictured above, commissioned a coffee mug from me, and I made him one, and he used it for years. It accidentally broke, and though Bill has other mugs, the thought of him without a working mug of my design disquieted me. I gave him a new mug last Sunday, and he graciously posed for this pic, mugging for the camera. 🙂

Father, with a Touch of Hood

June 16, 2025
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Father, with a Touch of Hood

One: Yesterday

I am at the 5 & Diner on Colter and 16th Street/Finishing a scoop of ice cream/Which followed an omelette made with shaved steak, peppers, onions/And two kinds of cheese.

It is my slightly naughty (being diabetic) Father’s Day gift to myself.

The two women who made me a father thirty-five years, two months, and one week ago/Live together with a floating population of cats/In the house I once shared with them.

They want to have nothing to do with me, indefinitely/And I have been respecting their wishes.

It has been this way for more than four years.

It hurts less and less as time goes on/But Father’s Day amps up the gaping ache.

Life goes on.

.

Two: Today

It’s my day off. I think, as I have many times/Of writing a letter to Kate/And reminding her/That we have had hundreds of good times together/And that we both love the movies, and Hawaiian and Mongolian barbecue,

And asserting that the explosive argument that started our estrangement/Began with a misunderstanding,

And asking her forgiveness for my crimes against the family,/Including me never ever attending a PTO meeting/When she was a student,/And gambling away a chunk of what should have been family money,

And I would ask consideration for the hours I spent teaching her to read and to count and to write her name (that one took two weeks)/So that she could apply for and obtain a library card at age 3…

But the fire sparked by my real need/To be a father to my daughter again/Flickers and dies with the realization/That after four years the voltage is still sky-high/And what I want is not the issue at stake,

And her specific request at last writing was “please let me go” even though “I know this makes you very sad.”

Even bringing this out in the open/Makes me feel like a hoodlum,

A Father, with a touch of Hood.

protest ahoy

June 14, 2025
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when senator alex padilla was thrown to the ground

for “failing to identify himself” (he had just said his name)

and “elevating his voice” (it was crowded and noisy)

upon the “remove him!” command

of a dog- and goat-shooting favor-curryer

and handcuffed and thug-handled away

from the field of play,

the senator’s attempt to ask a question

was thwarted with extreme prejudice.

the administration was protesting

the senator’s existence.

the incidents of undue process

upticked by one.

curate this

June 13, 2025
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somehow lately it has become fashionable/to curate things rather than merely make them

in this odd marketing-of-self move/many of us who support NPR/have become receptors of curated audio

but the clowns among us imagine/making lab instrumentation whilst wearing funny pants

curating curettes in culottes

and as a newly-minted curator I can curate a starscape of dandruff/by scratching my head over black paper

then process a pork product by curating a cured ham sandwich

it’s fun

but it drives the curated pretentionitis cure rate down

transmigration

June 12, 2025
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the charging cord kept falling out of my phone so

i took it to my provider and the rep verified so

i got a deal for a free new phone but

it involved a change of provider so

there was a mess of identity verification and old pin number and keeping current phone number and terms and conditions not to mention th guy from the other network trying to set me up spent inordinate time kissing my ass and apologizing several times for getting vital data required for transfer wrong for instance thinking march was the fifth month of the year and therefore my debit card info was deemed invalid

meanwhile the rep thinking she can multitask by taking payments from walk-ins and ringing up phone purchases

and when the logjam finally cleared and the phone transfer mission was accomplished i ask her if I can trade the cord that came with the phone which has the same adapter at both ends for one with the phone plugin at on end and usb port adapter at the other and she says it will cost me because i am the other guy’s customer now and not her customer no more

and I end up paying about $32.50 for a highspeed plugin charger

and the happy ending is this very second i am finishing a poem

on my new phone

Ogee Whiz

June 10, 2025
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So glad to be making acrostic poems again!

Ogee Whiz

Old fine Edifices glow

Gingerbreading quells uh-oh

Edgy edges end ennui

E-Z …dubya ex wye Z

One type of Ogee is a cutout shape involving both convex and concave curvature. The ogee arches sketched above have apical points.

Gingerbreading is use of a motif for trim to enhance windows or ledges. Some older architecture in downtown Phoenix features gingerbreading.

“Ogee Whiz” is pun-translatable into “Oh, Gee Whiz.” That’s a Bad Pun, but a worse one would be if I tagged a snowblank with the contents of my bladder with the monogram “OG.” It would not stand for “Original Gangsta” nor “Old Guy” but would be simply OG, and since it would be made from urine, colloquially known as Whiz, it would be OG Whiz.