existence
gambols with
greatness generating generations
sanctifying ethical defiance and fearlessness
but subjunctive junctures
permit failure
devouringly
be bet best blest lest let et
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giftie gie us
“O wad some power the giftie gie us/To see oursels as ithers see us!” Robert Burns, from “To a Louse”
“giftie noun/Scottish/gift; faculty” Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary
it is a season to trade gifts/to show appreciation/to bring a one that fair uplifts/and brightens an occasion
my lovely donna waits for me/in faraway toledo/which is excruciatingly/like penguins in a speedo
i bought her something just today/a tiny bonsai tree/placed in a vessel made of clay/made recently by me
the man will take my pot and then/with elbow grease, good people/contrive to drill and grind and spend/himself to make a weep-hole
so keep your fingers crossed, good friends/in hopes there is no cracking/and that this venture hap’ly ends/in joy and fun unlacking
and that we follow well the rules/and keep the wee tree healthy
and with the years contentment fuels/a trove that’s truly wealthy.
..
Afterword: There is a Donna in Toledo, Ohio, waiting for me, whom I am immensely proud to call my Sweetheart. I will be uprooting myself from Phoenix and going cross-country to live with her, we hope forever, some months from now; but much sooner I am flying to Toledo to be with her for a few days, and we will exchange gifts. The bonsai merchant will have, by this time tomorrow, used a masonry drill and a grinder to put a weep-hole in the bottom of the triangular vessel I made some weeks ago. It is unlikely that I will be able to present the bonsai to Donna before I make the move, but it is already hers.
Esso Open Mic Poetry feat. Bill Campana
Every third Sunday, except in the brutally hot summer months, the Valley’s own Esso Coffeehouse is the venue for a poetry event. Event host Russ Kasmierczak and Esso proprietor Sharon Kroger have decreed that every year, spoken word superstar Bill Campana, whose birthday is in December, shall be the December feature.
It was my honor and pleasure to fill in as host for Russ last night, he being needed in faraway Iowa. Here’s what I looked like as I hosted:
A dozen quite distinct poetic voices signed up for the open mic. Here is the list, and the mic, and the pen that was used to sign up:
And here all the open mic performers except the brilliant Roxanne Doty, who was so mesmerizing that I forgot to take her picture:
After a refreshment break, I introduced Bill, and he amazed us all with dozens of displays of verbal pyrotechnics.
After the enthusiastic applause died down, I went to the mic to wrap up, which, per long-standing tradition, included handing out a commemorative zine published by Russ prior to his departure.
I am proud to have hosted this December 2025 incarnation of the event. Big thanks to Russ and Sharon and all participants and helpers!
I Want My Country Back
O how I want The Ed Sullivan Show
I want good cheer and decency
James Stewart and Donna Reed (and The Donna Reed Show)
I want civil rights and equal opportunity
Double-feature movies
Bazooka Joe gum for a penny and you got a tiny comic strip too
I want moms yelling for their kids for supper from the front porch
Hide-And-Go-Seek
John F. Kennedy after the Cuban missile crisis and before his assassination
..
For the record America has always been deeply flawed
There has never not been racism
Never not been corruption in high places
But there has always been a beating, striving heart
And now all the strings are being pulled by the heartless
And in the Oval Office is a megalomaniac who makes Alexander the Great almost look like a shrinking violet
It is not the country I grew up believing we could have
It is the country worse than my nightmares
..
Good people are fighting tooth and nail to get my country back
Bad people are threatening them with death
And have in fact killed some of them
We The People includes saints and murderers
And You The Person have the power to fight the evil
Please fight
Be decent and good and stand up to bullying
Be thoughtful and kind and march and pray and vote
Be heroic
It is not too late
winterkus
an early sundown/a protracted sense of doom/to steal a soul’s heat
when a dog shivers/huddling in a bitter wind/your home is her home
holiday lights twink/and hot cider makes you think/cheer is a good brink
footprints in the snow/so you look up and fog breath/shows some exertion
electric blankets/make you feel like toasted bread/better turn it down
somehow meteors/despite incineration/look frightfully cold
you are a furnace/and it is your duty now/to provide your warmth
fugue in slightly minor key/sea
we need not fight
but sometimes we chide and throw shade and diss
which are microfights
subfights
slight fights
slights
..
we need not curse
but jeeminy crickets do we euphemise
and there are even schisms
in our euphemisms
..
still
life
beckons
we have days that are nice
a dais spiced with mischief
and daisies shifting in a breeze
suitable for a bucolic frieze
zephyr-shifted
in that slight wind
on our slightly-tilted earth
with a yellow dwarf of a sun
convecting our splendiferous atmosphere
beguiling us to preening
as we’re here
gilgamesh is gone
“Whence Came We? What Are We? Whither Go We?” –Title to one of Paul Gauguin’s most mysterious paintings
about four thousand days ago
plus or minus an order of magnitude or two
there was a great local flood
and people have remembered it in myths
because myths inspire and drive us
(just ask tolkien or campbell)
..
meanwhile it is with great sadness that we note
that just this week raw tragedy occurred
two deaths
a father and mother done in by a berserker son
and all kinds of wounds are fresh
in millions of souls
wounds inflicted by the stark wrongness
of loving parents slain
by a son who would not be helped
..
surely new myths are already being wrought
because we like stories
and what a story premise we have here
but the problem with myths
is that they act as baffles to understanding
they act to mislead us from wisdom
..
now it is especially important
for us to discard our love for a juicy narrative
and try to arrive at understanding of this nihilistic act
and with that understanding
however minuscule
arrive at a means of coping
..
gilgamesh of legend
survivor of the flood
is gone
if he ever was here
and make-believe is good for some things
horrendous for others
When a Man-Bird Loves a Woman-Bird
Today I sculpted these two birds, imagining the psyches of me and my sweetheart Donna inhabiting them.
rude rage
some time in the last fifty years
“quality control” became “quality assurance”
and more recently
“problems” became “issues”
but, marketing aside, rage turns people with weapons
into murderers
and free-floating rage
is on the rise
hatred has waxed and lightheartedness waned
..
some time after rodney king got his meat tenderized
by a gang of cops with their handheld hitting devices
he asked “can’t we all just get along?”
but all of us getting along would be catastrophic
for the manufacturers of weapons
so no, rodney, we won’t be getting along
any time soon
..
a man with fruit cart placed himself in harm’s way
to keep a gunman from making holes in some folks
not of his faith
and the gunman made two holes in his arm
..
frustration makes us ruder
and may make us enraged
and abraham zapruder
our smartphone use presaged.
Still Life with Choppers, Burrito, and Salsa Bowl
Still Life with Choppers, Burrito, and Salsa Bowl
Attention K-Mart Shoppers¹
The Blue-Light Special², Choppers,
Is Aisle Five–and Neat-O³
We throw in a Burrito⁴
With bowl of Salsa Rojo⁵
Très chic⁶, Tré Cool⁷, très Boho⁸
A feast of contrariety
In Southwest High Society⁹.
..
¹ Kmart was a supermarket chain popular in the 20th Century. It still has an online presence but aside from Miami and Guam the brick&mortar empire it once was is gone.
² The Blue Light Special was a Kmart flash sale that lasted as long as a rotating blue light shone and twirled.
³ When I was ten in 1964 “Neat-O” meant fun, groovy,desirable. Its etymology might owe something to the Beatnik era.–“Daddy-O” for instance.
⁴ A Burrito is a tortilla encasing anything from beans and cheese to chile-marinated meat. Spanish for “little donkey.”
⁵ The two major salsas are salsa rojo (red) and salsa verde (green).
⁶ French for “quite fashionable.”
⁷ Nom de guerre of Frank Edwin Wright III of Green Day fame.
⁸ Short for Bohemian, loosely meaning “unconventional.”
⁹ Needed a phrase to rhyme with Contrariety.
..
Endnote: the “Choppers” in the photo are a 3D-printed cast of my upper and lower left back teeth, made to enable casting of a molar crown in the upper.An oblong scanning device was manipulated around that sector of my mouth by a dental tech.
One with Clay, Image and Text 