Darling
said the King
the enemy is breaking through
and I am vulnerable
.
Sweetie
said the Queen
it is time for me to do what I must
give us a kiss
.
a kiss and she was off
and quickly felled after taking the Bishop
on the enemy’s Queen side
and her capture exposed the enemy’s flank
and the Queen’s Rook quickly moved to the seventh rank
and thanks to the brave Queen’s sacrifice
the enemy was defeated
but her King
was more vulnerable than ever
and devastated.
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
(home)
ec
o no
my
(art d)
eco
on
o my
(pars)
ec
o nom
y?
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!!
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
One with Clay, Image and Text 