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personal anarchy

to my friends Anita and Eric Mahaffey

when i was young and uneasy/in arizona’s glendale elementary school district #40/the regimentation was constant

chorus teacher miss heath/a good-souled if misguided pouter pigeon of a lady/had us sing “this is my country”/and march in place while singing “you’re a grand old flag”

and of course we said the pledge of allegiance/first thing every school day

and our newspapers were the arizona republic/and its sibling the phoenix gazette

both published by eugene s pulliam, rabid anti-communist and anti-bureaucrat

we also read the more provincial glendale news-herald/which was indeed heraldic

and as a consequence/the rules were deeply ingrained in this schoolchild/in the land of barry goldwater

(fun fact: i have grown to admire Mr AuH2O)

and you don’t just shrug off such insistent, relentless regimentation

but you resist/you fight back/even many decades later/to dethrone the despotic beast within

you learn to make functional pottery/and you make yourself an Anarchy Cup

and you learn to prepare food for yourself/and you make your meals anarchic

go on the griddle to go off the grid

buy yourself a halfloaf/of batter than none sourdough/extra sour and lumpish

use its stevedore heel/to have mayoed tuna with dillpickle/for an open-faced breakfast microsandwich/and eating it

then you spread the same tuna on the next, larger slice/and sprinkle sunmaid raisins/on the tuna substrate/and eat that too, washing the bites down to gulletsville/with black sumatran coffee in your Anarchy Cup

and then let sanity prevail, drawing the line/at spreading blueberry yoghurt/on a third, mayoed-tuna slice

instead pouring a second cup of coffee

sweetening and blondiefying it/with half&half and blue agave sirup

and give thanks to Sweet Anarchy

and being kingless, queenless and rookless

and ready to burst from the early-day’s starting gate

with intolerance for caste-based bigotry

and a fierce passion for fairness

determinationku

determination:

YOUR determination is

indeterminate.

.

youcandoitku

adversity is

your whetstone. you sharpen up

when you clash with it.

.

makethebadbetterku

what a mess! –so what?

pick up ONE sock–cry Victory!

DON’T add to the mess. 🙂

.

changefocusku

yes, you have problems.

someone out there is worse off.

how might you best help?

.

laughallthewaythroughku

warren zevon said

“enjoy every sandwich”

with mere weeks to live.

.

thankyoubobdiniroku

“you talkin’ to me??”

YES, YES, whoever you are.

need a hug? hee go!!

.

Note: When my daughter was a toddler, she said “Hee go” when she was trying to say “Here you go.” I found that immensely endearing.

cattle have a legit beef/with humans

Humans Are Exploitive/And Uncaringly Cruel

almost all humans with cars/murder insects without remorse

And They Raise Meat Animals/For The Express Purpose Of Slaughtering Them

humans would be better off/not eating meat

WHAT A SHAME THAT MEAT TASTES/SO F%Â¥&#@G GOOD, eh?

a New World is coming

It Will Have Either Wiser Humans/Forced-To-Be-Good Humans/Or No Humans

.

please join The Legitimate Beef Company

and don’t have a cow

Or A Bull

OR A STEER

between the surgical scars

nestled in the palmist’s map of divination

a cherry awaits placement among molars

there to be flex-pressed until she bursts

and cascades her flavor over a nimble tongue

that teams w/teeth to strip her stone of meat

the stone placed like a tongue-set jewel

and pluck’d by scarred-hand fingers

while the meat is sent for processing

to become an essential part

of a poet

Author’s breakfast, 24 January 2025

meal

the meal started with a good night’s sleep. the night before i’d e-mailed the managers at work that i thought i’d overworked my post-surgical hand the past three days and would therefore rest my hand today. when the alarm went off at 2:10 am I shut it off and got three more hours of sleep.

when i woke and took my four pills and flossed and brushed i thought i’d walk a mile and a quarter and end up at mcdonald’s, there to have an egg mcmuffin or two, but i knew i had ingredients for a cheaper and more nutritious meal at home. got a roma tomato and mexican-blend cheese and a carton of eggs and sausage and white onion from the fridge. put a bit of canola oil into a fry pan and put a third of a chopped white onion in the oil, tipping the pan and spatula-tossing till they were coated.

broke two eggs into a white bowl i’d made  last year and whisked to semi-homogeneity. removed the now-caramelized onion from the pan and poured the egg in. kosher-salted and peppered and tipped the pan around to make of the eggs a circular continent. after leisurely cooking on medium heat i spatula-compelled the continent into sharpei-like folds. let rest/fry one more minute, then plated and sprinkled the rough-shredded cheese on top.

into the pan i dropped two lumps of sausage totalling about a quarter pound. spatula-mashed them as thin as I could get them without raggettifying their edges, then cranked the heat and let them sit while I fast-sliced the tomato, eating the exotic ends.

a flip for the sausage patties, a lowering of the heat, and i let the patties fry while i put the plate of eggs and cheese and onions in the microwave for thirty seconds. added the sausage patties to the plate. put the plate on the laptops on the table and set kosher salt and pepper next to the plate and the mostly-empty jug of whole milk nearby. took and photo edited the photo you see.

and i ate/mixing bites/it is great/such delights/warm and cold/salty-savory/ne’er gets old/bursty-flavory/sweet whole milk/for the beverage/adds the silk/for the leverage/over sadness/over trauma/past the madness/past the drama/upping tempo/and nutrition/braiding hemp–o/hail Nutrition!

and I thank Heaven, and Goodness, and this moment’s Reality, and i thank whoever reads all the way down for your steadfast attention, and i wish you Good Appetite of Victuals, Words and Happiness.

shoes on first
watson seconds
idle nose on third

shoes on first

shoes on first

watson seconds

idle nose on third

.

prominent abbot costs hello

cost hostile owe a butt

weirdplay bays bowl

.

budloo

is a famous restroom

in roseville

Afterword: this is the forced-mutation granddaughter of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello’s “Who’s On First” routine.

two hispanic guys and i/were waiting for a bus/at 4:14am

a few minutes ago a van-like vehicle pulled up/with “animal control specialists”/decaled on the side

a woman was driving/and she had a passenger who said nothing

she asked my companions if they wanted a ride

“no hablo inglés” one of them said

i asked her where she was going/and she indicated that i was not part/of the ride offer

after realizing she was wasting her time she left

internet magic enabled me to say/”ella quería saber si necesitabas un aventón“

they smiled and said Thanks in english

the bus arrived and we got on

and remained free

The man solemnly swore/But his hand was not on the Bible/And by a grade-schooler’s standard/That means it didn’t count.

It does count, though/As a piece of the puzzle/Of this enigma of a criminal/Who loopholes his way through the rules.

“Hey, I WARNED you I was a snake,” he may say after the War.

And the Laugh Emoji will be his sword and shield.

there is the moon/above a gauzy cloud/and if it had a saturn’s ring/in its current crescent state/it would look like a bow and arrow/poised to fire at the sun horizon sun

there are muons too/in subatomic abundance/but if you want to see them/you will need a cloud chamber/and even then what you will see/are its characteristic tracks

the moon up above/the muons all around

one cloud gauzing/one revealing

that’s life

now, gullible and lullable are twins./but sanctioned hanky-panctity is not./the horizon infinity run alas is a race nobody wins/and a moment may be finite as a dot.

when we are fools in lust and greed and wanting/and get our hopes up faster than a flare./some hopes shatter, some dissolve, some are killed and then start haunting/some will drive us to the outskirts of despair.