little shrimp and big sharks have a deal/wherein the shrimp snack/on the shreds of flesh after the shark has had a feed/so the shrimp are in effect/organic dental floss
i once feared dental floss/thinking my gum-flesh delicate/not realizing that the scrubbing the floss enables/served to make the gum habitat more healthy/the gums better able to adhere to the clean enamel/and that bleeding i feared/less likely to happen
so after I take my morning medication/I floss with thorough vigor
but as a vestige of my old fear/before I start/i look myself in the eye in the bathroom vanity mirror/and solemnly intone “be careful”
and today after I was done i said to the floss/”thank you little shrimp”
i know it’s silly but it helps my day
.
Note: it was my fine friend Bernard Schober, known as The Klute and beloved by many, and now–alas!!–deceased, who first told me about the symbiotic relationship between sharks and shrimp. Please see my post “How ‘Bout Them Sharks?” for more about Bernard, and sharks, and our collaboration.
This evening, the third Sunday of the month, Esso Coffeehouse was the venue for its monthly Open Mic poetry event, hosted by my friend Russ Kazmierczak. I intended to participate as usual, and arrived early to ensure a good seat, but I was unsure what I ought to select for reading.
Then proprietor Sharon K stopped by my table to say hello, and asked me what I’d been up to, and I mentioned the Valentines I’d written this week, the latest one being a acrostic of my co-worker Kendra. (See my post of Valentine’s Day, February 14th.) Since I have the highest regard for Sharon, I decided to demonstrate that regard with an impromptu belated Valentine for her, thus:
S is for Solo Proprietorship
H is for Heaven in every sip
A is the Ambience we love so much
R is for Roasting and Revels and such
O is for OMG!! Esso’s The Bomb!
N is for Nice, thanks to Sharon’s aplomb
–Wellllll, ALMOST thus. My memory is fuzzy as far as exact words go. But the spirit and content are the same.
Here is a selfie of Sharon and me, taken after the event:
With five minutes to go before Open Mic started, I asked the lovely Julia F if I could have a go at doing her name too. She said, with just a slight frisson of dubiety, “Sure, have at it.” And just before “curtain time” I showed her the first (only) draft:
J is for Jaunty and stylish with flair
U is Undaunted — a fierce heart beats there
L is for Lissome, quite svelte & so slender
I is Iconoclast, other-road wender
A is Alluring, whatever your gender
She really is Alluring. See for yourself:
Soon it was my turn at the microphone. I wished everyone a belated Happy Valentine’s Day and told of the Valentines I wrote for the occasion, reciting Kendra’s and Julia’s. Then I looked across at the smiling face of novelist Roxanne Doty and said “You know, a real challenge would be to do one with an X in their name.” Then I did something akin to this:
R is Resplendent — a wildflower blossom
O is for Outings with Owl or Opossum
X is a Xeriscape for your enjoyment
A Academia — tenured employment
N is for Nature and what it has brought her
N is for Novelist Out Stealing Water
E is for Excellent Mother Earth’s Daughter
Some polite applause began, but I stepped on it with “Wait, there’s more!”
D is for Destiny: Best-Seller List
O is for Oscar, Best Screenplay: “RESIST!”
T is for Thankful this poem’s almost done
Y is for Youthful — eternally young
And here is evidence supporting that last line:
The featured poet of the event, David C, is an award-winning superstar of published poetry, and wowed the audience with eco-friendly journeys delivered with a rich Manchester-accented voice. His denunciation of Kit Carson and his clear-cutting of Arizona peach trees was particularly vivid.
After the event I bought one of David’s books, and he gave my copy this generous inscription: “Fellow spirit, fellow wordsmith, all the best. David C”
And Roxanne had this droll comment afterward about Academia: “Annihilating anything that is original.” Made me glad to have dodged the career-in-academia bullet. 🙂
the bed is spring mix washed and washed and washed
the glop is thousand island dressing mossed
the eggs are chef’s-knife-sliced and when they’re noshed
thus stratified it gratifies, untossed.
.
Note: This is last night’s salad, and my record of avoiding culinary disaster by leaving the salad untossed, which would have disunited yolks and eggs and mushified the yolks. Plus, aren’t the sliced eggs pretty? They look like a patch of flowers.
It is my good fortune to see this lovely woman almost every day. She slices turkey and ham, and I slice tomatoes, and we work across from each other in a gigantic kitchen, preparing foodstuffs for airport restaurants.
Her name is Kendra, and somehow it has become part of our workday to say “It’s good to see you” to each other, first chance we get. Yesterday there was more, though. I told her that for Valentine’s Day I was offering custom Valentine poems to any of my female Facebook friends who wanted one. Kendra smiled and suggested that I do one for her.
So yesterday I did. Here’s what she pulled out of the envelope on her break today:
Inside is a custom-made Valentine poem:
K is for Keeping your calm in the storm
E is your Eyes so dark-chocolatey warm
N is for Numinous–magical, bright
D is Delightful, a so-welcome sight
R is your Rich Voice of velvet and sun
A is Adorable–you’re #1!!!
And, you know, Friends, she does, they are, she is, she is, it is, and she is. This is one of the easiest Acrostics I have ever written. The words just leaped out as I thought of my friendly, consummately professional, drop-dead-gorgeous co-worker, of whom I am quite fond.
the engineer does not think of her coffee/as “hot”/but rather “cooling”/and not as “coffee”/but as a mixture of water/and ground bean byproduct/and 3ml of dairy extract somewhat denser than whole milk/and an unmeasured squirt of blue agave syrup/with a specific gravity greater than the rest of the mix/that has a certain insolubility such/that her drink will become sweeter with successive swallows/which is exquisite
her bed partner/lacking the background that includes terms like “threshold limits”/and “asymptotic approach”/and “under the metallurgical dome”/and “thevenin equivalent circuit”/and “chi-squared smoothing function”/enjoys HER hot coffee in a different way
hers is a magic vitalizing elixir/an alignment of planets and constellations/yum
the partners are good together/in a way not easily described in words
i joined the national workforce at the age of fifteen/and so have paid into social security for more than fifty years
i have worked almost a year for the u s postal service, america’s largest employer
i worked an aggregate nine years for three different healthcare systems, wrangling spreadsheets
i have worked at the family business my grandmother’s husband started/and later for my stepbrother/and later yet for my stepfather
i have been a warehouseman and a substitute teacher and a graphics designer and a data processor and a front desk night clerk and an office manager and a restaurant host/cashier and an administrative vice president
lately I’ve been a prep cook mostly slicing tomatoes and onions and portioning refried beans
consequently my dreams sometimes take hold/in a workplace setting/and last night was one such
in the dream i had come back to work after a leave of absence/and was told to look around
and my old and presumably reinstated office space/was engulfed in stuffed file folders/and the desktop computer i had used was gone
and a strange lady nearby saw my aghast expression/and said “don’t worry, this is temporary”
then a bigshot-looking blustery guy commanded me to find him a round office ASAP
and I looked in vain upstairs and down
then a guy dressed for golf with a bronzed suntan peeked around a doorway and seeing me asked me how my GOLF GAME was and suggested that we blow this pop stand and go to meet the tee time he’d arranged so he could check out my GOLF GAME
and i knew suddenly that a) this guy was powerful b) if i had a good GOLF GAME i could write my own ticket c) the firm was flying false colors as far as company mission went d) my GOLF GAME would be as good as my dream made it–hey, e) this was a dream.
i shuffled out of bed and to the bathroom/to take care of an old man’s business/and saw i had a good hour before the alarm
so I tried to pick up on the dream where it left off/but of course that rarely happens
and I was never able to clean house/with that corrupt company, alas
the girl-dog next door is sweet nala/she has close-cropped strawgold hair/and light-milk-chocolate eyes/a pushed-in puggy face/a nose-wiping tongue/and on her short legs she has sidewalk-skittery clawpaws
and when my neighbor brings her out/and i am out there too/nala doesn’t know what to do/because she is so shy but also desperate for the love of every human being available/so she looks up at me with her pleading face/but backpedals when i extend a hand
when I walk away she strains to come after me/if i stand there long enough she jumps up/ putting her clawpaws just above my knee
and finally i get to scratch her under the collar/and her eyes almost roll up
and then i must go about my business/despite sweet nala’s eyes
Addictive personalities make plans/That are subject to constant revision. I, who am addicted/to casino gambling
And overeating, had originally planned/To spend an hour doing household chores/And then hoofing it to Carl’s Jr. for an only slightly unhealthy breakfast,/And then hopskipjumping to PIP Coffee & Clay,/There to work on my wheel-throwing technique, find myself/At a dive bar called the Hideaway Lounge Sportsbar & Grill, digesting/Eggs over easy, two sausage links,/sourdough toast, crispy hash browns,/And an Irish Coffee heavily laced/With Jameson’s Irish Whiskey and a special/Vanilla-enhanced version of Bailey’s Irish Cream.
I will leave after I have finished/The bottle of Budweiser I now ingest/And the ten ounces or so of chaser-water.
If I were an alcoholic, I would be on my way to big trouble today.
Praise be, Alcohol is not my nemesis, although/In my more horrific gambling misadventures,/Alcohol has certainly been an unindicted co-conspirator/Because it impairs judgment/And loosens inhibitions.
But the demonic imp with whom I wrestle,/The at-risk factor that will do me in if I let it,/The deadly Wanna that is my direst character flaw,/Is the glittery temptress, Mademoiselle Chance.
I have had twisted, ghastly sex with Her/An awful number of times/And with the deep consequences of loss and grief/In tragic disproportion/To the delights She offers.
I left Her standing at the altar of my undoing/About two and a half years ago.
I hope never to see Her again, even on my deathbed.
on yr riddar scream/is a brite bliph obsceme/that tills you that some theme is rung//that sum (ting) is combing/en war (ping) whilst roaming/to strang gull ye song 4 it’s stung
the bliph (ping pong ping)/’s gid (ting) clothes err (ting ting)/n obliter8 (ting) fayth n gladness/yr ayes (ping ping) why den/yr hart (ting ting) fry ten/yr dee send (ting ping ping)/ into maaaaAAAA*
somewhere in our heads we think primitively about the sun.
part of us thinks it is taking a break when it sets. that it is a colder sun in winter, and it cranks up the knob in summer. that it burns. that it is a fire up above us.
even so, a little part of most of us knows that the sun is not on fire, that what seems like burning is actually a nuclear-fusion explosion in a celestial body so huge that its gravity keeps it self-contained and convecting.
a few of us even know that the sun is never above us, that it is always below us, at the bottom of our local gravity well. our words “below” and “above” were invented when space and time was misunderstood, and the inertia of our languages will always hamper our thinking.
there is also the matter of our brains, forged over millennia to meet survival challenges. the next time you see unexpected movement at the edge of your peripheral vision, “out of the corner of your eye” as we primitively put it, you will probably get a microjolt of fear until you are convinced you are not being threatened, and you may behave manically until your blood chemistry re-normalizes.
this is all part of your Great Human Adventure, at the most intimate level, you using your homefired primitive tools to make sophisticated sense out of the life you have, and making the life you have a better one through the thousands of decisions and choices and observations you make every day.
one word of exquisite usefulness I commend to your attention:
enjoyment.
en joy ment.
an involvement with J O Y.
friend, may you know it well, and have it well within you.
One with Clay, Image and Text 