Lite Nice Ness (NaPoWriMo, day 18)

April 18, 2020
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

Today our prompt is to write a poem celebrating the little nice things that get us through a day, a year, a life.

2020 0418 lite nice ness

Lite Nice Ness

Let’s look at the things that give a day a bit o’ gain
It’s as small as landing safely when you’re on a plane
T‘would be mush less saucy had we not War Chest or Shires
E‘er the wee! sweet! lovelinesses spiking our desires

One of the little nicenesses that get me through a day is Bad Puns. I love making them up, and I love when other people make them up and I read them. The third line of this poem is straight out of Badpunsville. “mush less saucy” is doubly punnish. Mush could also be Much, but Mush is edible. Saucy could be either attitude or condimental. And then “War Chest or Shires” is a wretchedification of Worcestershire, which is a sauce pronounced variously as “wurrshurr” or “woostisure” or “watery brown stuff.” I won’t apologize that “War Chest or Shires” matches no known pronunciation. It is closer to the actual spelling as anything I’ve heard.

Lastly, the whole poem is a setup for a Bad Pun. Notice that the first word of every line is a contraction. “Why, Gary??” I hear you asking. SO glad you asked, Friend! (Or “Friends,” if there is still more than one of you still reading.) (Or “Is there an echo in here?” if in fact no one is left reading.) The reason every first word is festooned with an apostrophe is answerable in two words. Here they come. Don’t hate me.

“Contractual obligations.” [Bdumph/Shhhuhh] (Rimshot.)

Ah, Apostrophes!! Don’t you just love the Little Things that Get You Through Life?

Over Atop

April 18, 2020
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

2020 0418 over atop

This morning I was watching a video featuring the late John Prine. He was at a festival that had “Not Strictly Bluegrass” in its title. Inference says it was 2017 because Prine dedicated the song “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” to “The New Führer, Adolf Benito Trumpetini.” And bless Honest John Prine’s protest-prone heart. He certainly had Trump pegged.

Prine has gotten a lot of deserved and long-overdue attention since he contracted, and eventually succumbed to, COVID-19. His many fans may enjoy a listen to another Heaven-related song, “When I Get To Heaven,” which begins with these spoken words:

“When I get to Heaven, I’m gonna shake God’s hand.
I’ll thank Him for more blessings than one man can stand.
Then I’ll find me a guitar, and start a Rock ‘n’ Roll Band.
And check into a swell hotel. Ain’t the Afterlife grand?”

John, this one’s for you. Wish you were here.

Over Atop

OMGDG someone call the DEA
Onward! For amazement jazzes up both alp & lea

Verily some Jameson laced your café au laît
Very Fine to Mint–remember LSMFT

Endchronic maelstromic War serves the libretto
Ectoplasmic echoes gather souls from manse to ghetto

Romper Room is OVER friends–balloon’s about to pop
Rise the fell APOCALYPSE the fullness of the stop

NaPoWriMo 2020, day 17: “Mimeo Graph”

April 17, 2020
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

Today’s National Poetry Writing prompt called for a poem that featured technology that is no longer in vogue. When I saw the prompt the memory of the scent thrown off by the mimeograph at Glendale High School–of the ink and spirit developer, that second cousin of Magic Markers, liltingly aromatic–hit me in the nose, so I did a little bygone-era walkabout via Internet search, and watched a training film on mimeograph techniques courtesy of the University of California at San Diego, which in 1958 was called San Diego University.

(More Memory Laning came when the film reminded me of the sound the film projector made when in grade school and high school they showed us stuff like that. I remember in 8th Grade, Mr. Gasser showed us a film on digestion, featuring fluoroscopy after a food or drink item had been put in the mouth, and seeing the journey down the gullet to Stomachville. Hilarity ensued when Mr. Gasser ran the film backwards, and you saw stuff gradually coming up a kid’s esophagus, then consolidating in the mouth, and then you see the kid chew and chew, stick his fork in his mouth, and pull out an unchewed piece of cherry pie. Our darkened room exploded with laughter. So hey, Rudy Gasser, wherever you are–thanks for all the fun stuff like that!)

2020 0417 mimeo

Mimeo Graph

Make a stencil/get an ink pad/paper: cotton rag
Mockup/test/& crankcrankcrank/you got it in the bag

Images come flying out, 12 dozen for a dollar
It’s a boogie-woogie noise the envy of Fats Waller

Memoranda/flyers/Hell: The History of Cholera
Maybe even comic books–Osiris Vs. (Taller) Ra

Eventually, Xerox gave the mimeos the slip

Obsolescence makes them one with petro/hieroglyph

NaPoWriMo, day 16: “glory bee”

April 16, 2020
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

For Day 16 of National Poetry Writing Month we are supposed to write a poem full of overblown superlatives in praise of somebody or something..

glory bee

beatrice the hearts are thumping
all for you around the earth
sheep are bleating joints are jumping
all proclaiming all you’re worth

listen to the canyons howling
fox hyena wolf and dog
even bathrooms start unscowling
toilets here and yon unclog

we’ve been well and truly goddessed
basking in thy benediction
glory bee though thou art modest
thou’rt the stuff of science fiction

thou’rt the stuff of epic poems
thou’rt the stuff of stovetop stuffing
thou’rt the awe of sherlock hoems
and thy pornstars need no fluffing

giggling thou art windchime musicks
casting spells with merlin’s magicks
half-and-halfing tea and mueslix
kissing off cyanophagics

bliss away our deepest sorrows
tiptoe through our thirsty psyches
aphrodite our tomorrows
fleet our steps with golden nikes

NaPoWriMo, Day Fifteen: “Uneasy Listening”

April 15, 2020
Uncategorized
Leave a comment

Today’s prompt: “Today, I’d like  to challenge you to write a poem inspired by your favorite kind of music. Try to recreate the sounds and timing of a pop ballad, a jazz improvisation, or a Bach fugue. That could mean incorporating refrains, neologisms and flights of whimsy, or repeating/inverting lines or ideas – whatever your chosen musical form would seem to require! Perhaps a good way to start is to listen to your favorite piece of music and “free-write” for the duration  of the piece, and then use what you’ve written as the building blocks for your poem.”

freewrite prep:

sometimes jackson browne is easy listening
sometimes less so despite his oiled voice
“lives in the balance” is masterfully unsettling
“sky blue and black” makes me cryabit for the loss
of my so great friend
but it is good to be uneasy
it is even good to wallow
as karen said she did
while playing beethoven’s “moonlight sonata”
which she said left her sopping
and jackson browne now sings
“if you ever need holding
you’re the hidden cost and the things that’s lost
in everything I do
YEAHHHH, and i’ll never stop looking for you…
that’s the way love is”

and the way love also is
is quicklikeabunny goneinaminute
when it’s at its best….

****

Geez Louise, did that open up a vein. All right, then, let us begin.

Uneasy Listening

In the course of one day
The mix tape may lull
and then excite
and then inspire
NEED A SKETCHPAD A PENCIL crankcrankcrank

and then the music fades without loss of volume
Because focus Because otherrealm Because it does not fit
AND Then there is a bit of discontinuity
And THEN the music returns to the ear

and the sequence is off
and the mood Doesn’t match
Through no fault of the performer
nor the receiver/it’s just a jump cut/that’s life

find McCartney/Lennon/Billy Preston/georingo

GET BACK
GET BACK
GET BACK twear youonce blongd

twiddle that dial
no–Why So Sirius?
Seek The Specific
Heal The Unease
find Jackson Browne
and let him sing for both of you:

I’M
ALIVE

And then get centered with Mitchell, Joni
with the roundabout
cyclic delight
“The Circle Game”

Gooooood…

And then Prine
Lost-But-Not John
“When I Get To Heaven”

smoke em if ya got em John
we love you
have a Vodka Ginger Ale for me

Ease
Restored….