Variety Pax

October 21, 2026
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“I’ve been canning corn all day long,” she said Dolefully.

..

Handedness

Lefty, southpaw, sinister fellow,

Unadroit and thus unmellow,

Upside-down guitar and scissors,

Glove on wrong hand, gosh, gee whizzers.

..

Blanche is my favorite Golden Girl,” he said Ruefully.

..

Glandedness

The sticky guy walks with a lymph,

The guy who’s gonadal desires a nymph,

The guy who’s thyroidal’s too fast to avoid

And splenetic frenetics seem raged due to ‘roid.

..

“Who’s for a Victorian card game?” they said Whistfully.

..

Can’t-Standedness

Some relative’s humidity

May make your flesh crawl slimily

And fascist-dupe stupidity

Makes goatish madfolk climb a tree.

..

the souls of inanimate objects

October 20, 2026
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from the heart of spirited japan

come kami-kaze

and anime

and the investment of souls

unto wind and cartoon

..

fables tell of magic swords with personalities

excalibur

glamdring

stormbringer

and last last one was itself soul-vampiric

..

even in my own soul-tepid culture

i was urged to give my automobile a name

and when i named her celeste i gave her gender too

though she may be closeted

(garaged?)

..

this seems to me to be proof

of the existence of gods

in the form of human minds

creating stories out of nothingness

..

even at breakfast it happened

two pieces of dark rye toast became brothers

one favoredly anointed with strawberry preserves

one bare of all but butter

and a bite taken out of him by his Creator

who saith, “my son, you too are valuable,

for you help My Senses calibrate Reality.”

and otherslice replied

“ow.

that hurts.”

smudge-eye

October 20, 2026
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our vision is binocular

unless one eye goes bad

the one-eyed jack looks jocular

the one-eyed knave a cad.

..

my left eye now perceives a smudge

so close it and sight clarifies

in closing, give eye health a nudge

so earthly vision rarefies.

..

On my recent drive from Toledo to Phoenix I found that my left eye was seeing in soft focus, as if a thin film of Vaseline was on the lens. Blinking rapidly seems to de-smudge it somewhat. I hope it’s nothing serious.

..

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n.e.s. #188 of 480: Words Fail

October 19, 2026
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Rival Rifle Revel

Rife contention roars its roar

Ignorance’ll frolic more

Voices lift from your TV [Vouching for your POV]

Advocate: Let Reggie Mantle

Let it slip–you never can tell

..

Hipshot Fishnet

Hobnobbed with a BFF

It’s a true Roman à clef–I

Paid my deus [sic] struck my poses

Salivated over roses–eh

Up comes revelation when we

Take our stage for gal & gent

..

Red E Stet Goop

Resonating syncopating

Entertainment in slo-mo

Dissipate like Perry Como

Enter storm grate and full stop

..

Done Deal

Desmond had in Molly goad

Obviously on they rode

Nanny for a reaped alfalfa

Ecumenical falafel

..

Words fail.

..

I am not a lineman for the County

Nor do I look for an overload

But between the start and end

It is hoped that I append

An Americanan footnote on this road.

..

Words fail.

unfolderol

October 18, 2026
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wake yawn turn rise

..

brew up some coffee

review plans take pills

evacuate shower shave

have a nice breakfast

..

embark on a one-day journey into sanity

right a minor wrong or two for uneff sake

reflect reflect renew and cancel selectively

indulge for you will never be more capable

own up to failure and other culpability (bathe)

see feel taste listen discern earn learn unburn

enjoy the sunset and anticipate the sunrise

wind down with inclusion of a loving message

duskdream about a fun tomorrow as you drowse

..

“Unfolderol” is Unfold folded into Folderol. When I started composing this poem I remembered fondly my teenaged reading of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Clarke’s notion of the monoliths having precise dimensions of 1:4:9, with the fillip that fourth and further dimensions would continue the exponential sequence. From there, with that simple template of unfolding dimensions, I chose increasingly nuanced lines for each of the three stanzas, implying that more stanzas may exist beyond senses or cognition. (And Stanza 1 is one line, 2 is four, 3 nine.)

Why Folderol, which can mean “cheap trinket”? Well, the hope is that close inspection, I.e. unfolding, of quotidian life might reveal profundity when taken or perceived in a higher dimension.

..

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fie

October 17, 2026
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funny isn’t everything

fitness is essential

fireworks ignite effortlessly

flame: it’s existential

..

you cannot say re-fi and not say fie

you cannot say stomachic without stum

and if you are defiant

and try theft against a giant

he’ll decry you with a fie mid fee foh fum

..

I was going to add a sonnet

but i’m lazy

fie upon it

..

fall away

October 16, 2026
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for midpoint october fa la la la

a tree will exfoliate that is the law

let’s hear it for lepi then dopter then a

leave leaves to their slumber and fall up today

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pander money yum

October 16, 2026
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pander money yum

pompous bums are acting cadly

and the world looks on so sadly

needy men from lsu

designate a parvenu

energetically some serum

rounds up yahoos to de-leer ’em

..

Title: a warpage of Pandemonium.

The Pompous Bums are certain fascistic politicians.

The regard for the United States of America has taken a tragic nosedive.

LSU may stand for something different, but Line 3 was inspired by Randy Newman’s lyric “College men from LSU/Went in dumb, come out dumb too.”

Parvenu: upstart, arriviste, someone desiring undeserved respect.

Serum: A formulation intended to correct an undesired condition.

De-leer ’em: Wipe the smugness off their faces; a warpage of Delirium.

Superimposition: A Quantumphysical Meditation

October 16, 2026
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The mind obsessed with acrostic poetry suddenly realized that the word Superimposition could be self-demonstrating, meshing the five letters of Super with the ten letters of Imposition. Parlor trick or monumental discovery? Maybe both?

I would have been tempted to bother a quantum physicist about it, Superimposition being a vital concept in quantum theory, but a Bad Pun bubbled to the surface with “No, a quantum physicist has far more important things to theorize about. I don’t want to be a Super Imposition.” So I played with the word/words some, appending here, emphasizing there, and a couple of hours later I had a handful of ancillary words, the endword Aborning, and a sketchy hourglass to reveal that an hourglass may mean not Time Is Running Out but Something Good and New Is Coming Up.

For those unfamiliar with quantum entanglement, the Klein bottle, Newtonian optics, or the kinetically-thrilling Teacups ride at Disneyland, searches on those key words/phrases may rove rewarding.

As always, any questions relating to this page will be cheerfully answered–at least the first dozen or so.

Thanks for your attention, and your entanglement, Reader and Friend!

grace notes of domestic love

October 14, 2026
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grace notes of domestic love

her sleep is fitful owing some to a creaky knee

her man rises and exits the bedroom without sound

and then in the kitchen adds the gentle noises

of the early-morning chores of kitchen-bag disposal

(crinkly pulling up of bag

unlocking and opening back door

quite faint sound of deposit in big lidded bin outside

closing/locking door then swish out of new bag

closing little lidded bin with authoritative whmph)

and coffee-making

(lid-lifting/reservoir-filling/filter-snugging

store-brand coffeebag-opening/spoon-dipping

lid-shutting/pressing I/O switch

with a startyourengines click

and then the burble of the coffee brewing

and dish-doing

with the mild clatter of the roasting pan

and the rainfall-effervescence of a sink filling

with soapy water with the faucet nozzle

set on Sprinkle/Highpressure

and the clink and scrubsqueak of ceramic bowls

washed and rinsed and set in the dish drainer

..

the man is hopeful that the sounds

of little tasks being taken care of

will ease his sweetheart’s sleep

and she does look peaceful

as she opens her eyes and smiles and they kiss

..

“want some coffee?”