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dream is but a life

May 15, 2025
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to the spirit of stephen crane

in the dream a younger, troubled-days

robert downey jr

was auditioning for director

paul verhoeven

and the scene was going well

but then downey jr stopped,

overwhelmed,

and wept blood onto his bare chest.

verhoeven gently strolled over

and sat beside him,

and with a razor-sharp index fingernail

incised a design of a thorned heart

over downey jr’s real heart

with downey jr’s blood.

the tear-blood mixed

with the incision-blood.

verhoeven delicately put his hand

on downey jr’s shoulder

and downey jr looked up at verhoeven

with his wet, red-streaked face.

they were both weeping.

verhoeven so softly said,

“get your immaculate heart restored,

and we’ll talk.”

****

Afterword: This afternoon I came home from work exhausted, probably more due to sleep-deprivation the night before than from the rigors of work. I woke feeling refreshed and, still in bed, started to browse the Internet with my phone–but soon found the phone falling out of my hands as I nodded off. “Well, let’s take another nap.” In my second nap I had a dream substantially like the poem I have just written. I wrote a draft and was struck by the dream’s kinship to “In the Desert” by Stephen Crane. I then slightly rewrote the poem to make the cadence and language more Cranelike, more starkly descriptive; and I dedicated the poem to the spirit of Stephen Crane, one of my literary heroes.

YLHL

May 14, 2025
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Supporters of the Despot

Lend me your ears

And your consciences.

You let him lie.

You shrugged, said “All politicians lie.”

Out of the other side of your prevaricating mouths you said, “What I love about him is he’s not a politician.”

You never call him on it, not even after 30,000 lies, some of them told to get elected.

Can you say what exactly he did on Day One to stop inflation in its tracks? I can.

He did NOTHING to stop it in its tracks.

Sitting on his ass and watching TV doesn’t count, any more than it did on January 6, 2021.

He would have stopped lying if you shunned him for lying.

But you let him continue to lie.

YOU let him lie.

You LET him lie.

You let HIM lie.

You let him LIE.

So go to hell,

Take him with you,

And leave us to clean up your mess.

thicket control

May 13, 2025
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sorry if this disgusts

but many of us oldsters suffer

from undesired nasal cobwebs

and must either take tiny sharp scissors and carefully snip

(without a surgeon’s skill there will be pokery sufficient to induce tears)

or tweeze with tweezers

(yanking a subsector at a time. by the time you get that elusive last hair the tears are streaming)

or wax

(unsightly, unpleasant nose-pluggage with brown gunk on a popsicle stick)

or hands-only pinch and pull

(ineffective, painful or both)

.

so you look for that magical buzzwand device that is like a gentle weed-whacker and find one for only seven bucks and it works great for about a week and then doesn’t work worth a damn no matter how diligently you dig around up there and you think changing the battery might help but no

so you say the hell with it let nature take its course and before you know it you look like bruce dern in that movie where he was a cranky old man with seeming miniaturized tumbleweeds up his nose

and you keep your head down but then someone says chin up and you think ok dude you asked for it and your victim gasps and averts their eyes and then everyone else at work averts their eyes

and suddenly you are the quasimodo of the workplace

.

today I bought batteries for my new $24.99 grooming kit

here’s hoping that in 2025 the nosehair-removal state of the art has advanced

or they find a cure for senescent follicular misadventure

ps

“up your nose with a rubber hose” doesn’t work either

male and female and intersex and etcetera created he (?) us

May 13, 2025
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if people studied biology

while they studied the Bible

they would learn that there is much more to biology

than “male and female created he them”

they would learn that human males

are less elegant and more makeshift than females

that hormonal secretions influence gender

that we are all chimerical

and so we sort of rhyme with miracle

.

we cannot all be scientists

but every one of us can learn every day

but there are some of us who choose not to learn

who would rather stay at the shallow end of pooled knowledge

even though knowledge is power

and ignorance is crippling and destructive

but hey, why not get rid of urinals?

i for one would rather do my micturition in a stall

than have my nublike dick out for any gloating perv to peek over my shoulder to see

urinals are barbaric and demeaning

privy and privacy share etymologies

.

geez, are we all warped or what?

it’s JUST a BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION

annoying but necessary

embarrassing for many

we need to grow up about it!

the strange rebirth of annonamus bear

May 12, 2025
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fifty years ago i was in first love

we were intoxicated with each other

talked on the phone for hours about nothing

and we built a mythos around stuffed bears

and called each other “bear” too

read milne’s pooh books to each other

named members of her bear collection hair bear, bear hair, stranjber, the timid scare-bear, the red-capped festive bear, and so on

and sometimes the notes i wrote my sweetheart were in the persona of “annonamus bear”

signing the note “annonamus bear” and adding a couple of cartoon bear paws next to the signature

and always adding a postscript signed a. bear

.

alas, stupid choices and insane actions on my part led to the protracted ending of our relationship

and even five decades later occasional overwhelming regret wells up within me

and i hadn’t thought of annonamus bear at all this century

until today

for no reason I know

and here he is now, tiny, on my left shoulder

and except for “hi” he hasn’t said a word

but he implies plenty through his blackdot eyes

“don’t you miss the crazy magic?” say his eyes

“what good does frittering your day away in your unshared apartment do?” say his eyes

“learn from what you have loved” say his eyes

“this carnival ride will be over before you know it” say his eyes

.

alas, a. bear only knew me as a young pup and not as a sleepy, regretful old man

it’s a lot harder to find late-life love than his eyes say

but he has a point

Deep State

May 12, 2025
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How about that Deep State, folks? They have been tirelessly working to impose their insidious agenda–

[sound of vinyl record stylus ripping across the spiral groove]

There IS a Deep State in the United States of America, fellow citizens of Here, There and Everywhere.

It is a Deep State of Pretense.

The President of the United States of America is asked why he pardoned a man who brutally squeezed a Capitol policeman in a glass doorway with intent to crush.

The President asks in reply if that wasn’t a commuted sentence instead of a pardon.

(And that would matter why??)

The reporter says that it was a pardon and not a commutation.

The President says, “Well, we’ll look into that…”

To date he has not looked into that. Why should he? He knows what he did. He knows he is pretending. And he never answered the question.

It’s poetic, actually.

But some poetry is propaganda, advancing an evil non-mandate, flying colors so false that a drizzly rain would wash them off, and perhaps reveal stark text saying THEFT IN PROGRESS, OF A) MONEY B) TRUTH C) DECENCY.

Look into your heart, Citizen.

What have you done about this?

nearness

May 11, 2025
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the end is near/the endgame well under way

but relax, this is just a baseball game/in the ninth inning/in still-early may

plenty of season left

what else is near?

let’s see if I can spruce up my appearance and find “grooming kit near me”

hell yeah! 0.4 miles and open for another hour!

how about chateaubriand?

chateaubriand is near, all right/but beyond unaffordable, alas.

and the woman of my dreams? is she near?

alas, the search yields no results.

but isn’t it comforting to know/that some priceless desires/are beyond the ken of cold circuitry?

Who wants to be a mother?

May 11, 2025
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A moment’s fleeting passion

And, nine months hence, a kid

Who’s hungry, wet and thrashin’

Loud as a katydid.

.

The “tomcat” dropped a litter

The freezer needs defrosting

Your own mom’s sad and bitter

And she can be exhausting.

.

The husband seems distracted

By nubile female scenery

And toots as if he’s acted

The glutton at a beanery.

.

Your youngest’s bike was stolen.

Your oldest is in trouble.

The middle’s glands are swollen

And, though he’s twelve, there’s stubble.

.

Who wants to be a mother?

Sometimes you don’t; let’s face it.

Though Motherhood can smother,

Heroics–yours!!–can grace it.

****

My friends, I am a grateful son who realizes that without mothers, 99.9999-plus percent of us would never have existed. Motherhood, physical or spiritual, takes tremendous courage and perseverance, and a mother’s love is the force multiplier for achievement and fulfillment in most of our lives. Happiest of Mother’s Days to all you mothers, and motherers, out there!!!

A Peculiar Prayer

May 10, 2025
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Greed-prayers ask for moola

Love-prayer for companion

A sweet Hawaiian does her hula

Underneath the banyan.

Clue-prayer asks for guidance

Woe-prayers ask for strength

A gang of demons wield their tridents

Down the border’s length.

Prithee writhe no further

Beg ya, have some trust

A cockney thwarting murther

Knows that deeds leave dreams in dust.

trappings

May 9, 2025
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there’s a guy i know

who bought a quiche lorraine two days ago

and gloats that he still has half of it left

and thinks he’s deft

because pressing the microwave number one

renders it perfectly done.

.

there’s a guy i am

who feels like I am on the lam

from death herself

so food that’s disappearing from the shelf

is replaced by say oat bran and sardines

because i am learning what degenerative diabetes means.

.

the thing about devil-may-care

is that a metaphorical devil is really there

and what they care about is closing my account

by zeroing out the dwindling amount

of elan esprit de vivre vitality spark

and gearing down from drive

to neutral

to park.

.

one thing about old age

you can rail and weep and rage

pound your fist against the brick

but there’s brief daily ecstasy to be had when you awaken with a pulse and awareness and you hear the lovely affirmative sound of the internal odometer clicking itself another click.