It does not please her to exist,
This Bird that I have made.
She glares at me with glaze-glared eye
And dreams of hells in which I fry
Because a sculpture cannot fly,
And I with ambulation blissed
Ensouled her shade in shade.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Broken chassis
Or son of a V I P
Now we 4F U
Enjoy lack of war
the distance between 32nd st slightly north of thomas on the east side of the street/and the mcdonald’s slightly south of indian school on the west side of 32nd st/is exactly one mile
after you walk across 32nd st and head north/you will pass an apartment complex that touts its “sparkling pool” but beware/for another sign that says “newly renovated” has been up for over a year
you will walk past what once was a church and what now seems to purport to be/a sanctuary for people who are bent but not broken
and past the southbound bus stop at clarendon/you will approach another apartment complex/one that once had a “now leasing” banner with a number to call/but the banner is gone and since i once lived there it amuses me to think/that a resident driven to enragement by inattention to such issues as pest control and mold management has torn down the banner
and walking past that artifact of pestiferous memory you now approach the fabled golden arches
and it’s pleasantly slightly warm being early/and your hunger has nicely gestated/and you feel slightly druglessly buzzed
melllow with three ells
with a mild case of the munchies
bone spur
here is a foot with a genuine bone spur.
the owner of the foot has lived with the spur
for more than fifty years, managing
to play tennis, football, the other football, capture the flag, and king of the mountain;
managing to finish three marathons, six half-marathons, and dozens of 10K footraces;
managing to climb piestewa peak’s summit trail at least ten times and its circumferential trail at least four times; managed to climb atop camelback mountain at least three times; has taken the peralta trailhead to a good view of the weaver’s needle in the superstition mountains at least twice, once carrying a toddler on his back;
has managed the bone-spur pain and sensitivity mostly without medication;
has managed not to talk about it at any length till now, when its relevance trends every now and then.
the owner of this bone-spurred foot
avers that a bone spur need not be an impediment for ANY sort of activity
though that activity may be accompanied by the occasional yelp.
this has been a public service announcement
and an excuse to brag.
please Vote.
One with Clay, Image and Text 