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suckers

July 22, 2025
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“They sell us the President the same way/They sell us our clothes and our cars/They sell us everything from Youth to Religion/The same time they sell us our wars.” Jackson Browne, “Lives in the Balance,” mid-1980s

lampreys and rose stems and skeeters, o my.

vampires and vacuums and vegas, o my.

Lobbyists Senate and Congress, O MY.

suckers all,

and the paradox is THEY

are playing US for suckers.

.

and we need an antidote for suckery

and rhymes thereof.

.

doubt of,

discipline against, and

intolerance for scams…

these will help.

but a distaste for “red meat” is as essential.

we all have a hankering for that salacious,

gobsmacking, itch-scratching

metaphorical “red meat.”

so let us say to ourselves, “ah, the best of me

doesn’t want that. only my

Inner Lizard wants that.

because it’s fluffy and tasty.

but side effects include

Genocide, Armament, Despotism

and Destruction.”

.

let us banish the Lizard

to the Hell It is creating.

let It rule there

exclusive of all elsewheres.

mania MANAGEMENT

July 21, 2025
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a slug of sleep

at a phase of the moon

and you’re gabby in the morning

and a tabby on the prowl

come afternoon

.

but open a channel

and channel a verser

and set a sail a set of fleeting thoughts

like

“Some saw him as an artisan who bartered bathroom enclosures for herbs. Others trivialized his efforts as merely stalling for thyme.”

and

“The ultimate oxymoron is one word. Misshit. Schadenfreude. But two short words are good. Go on a slow fast and think about it!”

soon the expenditure of energy will make you drowse. You may choose more sleep, more verse, or a different worthwhile endeavor.

[Sender’s phone falls out of his hand]

death rattle of the new coffeemaker

July 21, 2025
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well, my mr. coffee died quietly two days ago/the on switch simply wouldn’t light up nor activate when pressed/so i being unhandy and incapable of repair slash resurrection called the time of death/and have emptied the reservoir and will give it an improper nonburial

and now I have a new coffeemaker/and have read the instructions/learning thereby that the manufacturers of this charming device/define five ounces as “one cup of coffee”/so i will get about two decent-sized cups per pot/which is ok

and I have just now followed the instructions/of first washing the pot with warm soapy water and rinsing/and next running a brew cycle without coffee/so as to clean its innards

and when i ran it/i learned that the new machine sounds like it dies an agonizing death by copd/as it yields the last fraction of an ounce of superheated water

its agony and final death-rattle sigh/worthy of shakespeare/who famously said

“Cowards die many times before their deaths;/The valiant never taste of death but once.”

may my new fellow-coward coffee machine/die a thousand histrionic deaths/before it really and truly and once and for all and irreparably/dies

Love Spectrum #9

July 20, 2025
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You read about someone you might like

You walk by someone who is a fair fit for what you read about someone you might like

You hear the voice of that someone and you like it

You like what the voice says

You find a way to share space and time with that someone, possibly in a group setting

You start daydreaming about what might happen

You present a better version of yourself in hopes the someone notices

You start accumulating nice moments involving your someone

You seem to notice a mutual attraction

You definitely notice a mutual attraction, unless your mind is playing tricks

Your heart leaps when one or the other of you throws caution to the winds and the two of you arrange to be together

.

(Like the visible light spectrum, Love Spectrum #9 is but a sliver of the full spectral range. The creation of Love Spectrum #10 is left as an exercise, or an overture, for the reader.)

(The author hopes a certain someone is reading this.)

grapevibe

July 19, 2025
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you walk in/it is unusually quiet/a few pairs of eyes flicker from you to a woman you do not know

someone pokes their head into the break room/and says Staff Meeting In The Boardroom Now

you get a few more looks

you find your seat nearest the exit

the Director comes in and glances at you with a twinkle in his eyes

and you exhale as you realize

this is not an execution

but the dubbing of a knight

phoenix as fungus

July 17, 2025
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my adult-life home town was named after a mythic bird who was periodically conflagationally consumed and then was reborn from ash

but a spreading fungus is a more apt comparator

aerial maps over time show urban development filling topographical nooks and cartological crannies

and photos over time of camelback mountain taken from east of 40th street and south of camelback road show expensive houses climbing the mountain like lurch-stepped hikers

.

climate change has amped the furnace roar of this Infernal paradise

and entrickled the cascade of Verde salt and Colorado rivers

and new residents migrating from California to escape wildfires are just as thirsty as the rest of us

.

this is my home and my life

but i have moved before

Heat Management in the Valley of the Sun

July 14, 2025
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I’m in Phoenix AZ at 7:07 AM Mountain Standard Time

And the temperature is 91 and well into its eager climb

And my Fitbit is at zero steps and I need ten thousand more

But if I face the harsh broad daylight now my sweat will surely pour

And the shower I just took will take a turn to null and void

So my challenge is to get my steps in a way to be enjoyed

And I think of nearby Fry’s at which I buy foodstuffs and fluids

And the Goodwill on the way there with arcana fit for Druids

But the Goodwill doesn’t open till 9 and the Fry’s though open now

Will be an E-Z Bake GIFTEEN HUNDRED STEPS one way and bedrenchment nigh and how

But I could drive there and take a tour of endcaps shelves and aisles

But the net steps won’t be much and what I really need are miles

So what I’ll do is make ceramic ware at PIP Coffee and Clay

May take the bus may walk.may drive but I’ll get a good spin on the day

And later at Scottsdale Fashion Square I’ll mallwalk hither and yon

A ragamuffin imposter facing bougie brigades full on

But cool! and fresh! and lucky! for their Harkins boasts a movie

That will reward ten thousand steps with a Pitt stop O so groovy

And their covered parking will keep my doors and steering wheel cool

And my undisheveled revelry will fluff like unworn wool

****

Afterword: We desert dwellers, ambulatory or motorized, have a daily challenge to meet at this time of year, and I thought a walk through my own challenge today would be fun. I decided on a slightly clunky rhyme/meter scheme typical of those who do not have enough poetry-writing experience under their belts that yields smooth, glib (and sometimes cloying) verses, and tried to “sound” like a typical Phoenician on a typical summer’s day.

I mention Harkin’s Camelview Theatre, where I am a fairly frequent flier, and “Pitt stop” refers to the movie Foula One, starring Brad Pitt. It is hard for me to resist bad puns, especially with light verse.

A Landmark Event in the History of Heckling

July 12, 2025
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You have heard of Plato

He was the guy that made Socrates famous

And you may have heard of Diogenes

He was the guy who lived in a barrel and wandered around looking for an honest man

Less known is that Diogenes heckled Plato during one of Plato’s discourses

Let the audience know that he thought Plato was full of it

And rhyming word thereof

.

Much more recently

Last evening in fact

Heckling history may have been made

During my fabulously-talented poet friend June Powers’s reading of her poem “Close Your Eyes”

And after she had invited us the audience to close their eyes:

A masculine voice at considerable volume came from the smartphone of an audience member

And it said “I AM AN AI. I DON’T HAVE EYES.”

Is this the first instance of AI heckling a human poet?

It seems probable.

.

Will it be the last?

Unlikely.

his and hurts

July 10, 2025
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some boys never become men

they used to play marbles and now they play markets

they think of sex as conquest

income as “fuck-you money”

and the poor as annoyances as best and barbarians at their gates otherwise

their neverland is gimmegimmegimmeville

and they daydream of centerfold pleasure even as their own skin sags and mottles

and many of them die as ancient boys

still lusting

still hurting

still baffled

degreed

July 9, 2025
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there are academic degrees and thermometer degrees and degrees of freedom and degrees of criminality

and to be degreed academically is to acquire the prestige of letters following your name

whereas to be degreed thermodynamically is to be subject to a certain amount of heat from the sun or lack of heat due to compressor activity in a walk-in cooler

and then from an engineering standpoint there are dimensional degrees of freedom found in a mechanical linkage or in musculoskeletal motion

but there is a sense in which “degreed” refers to none of these

but may refer peripherally to degrees of criminality…

can you see it?

see, in the single word “degreed,” the solution to many human problems?

here: take the word greed and append to it the prefix de-

degreed, verb transitive: to remove greed as a factor in persons or legislation or decisions

ah, but we cannot live without greed, proclaimed gordon gekko as brilliantly portrayed by Michael douglas in the 20th-century film wall street

sure we can, says minor poet gary “the tomatoman” bowers in this thing you are reading

and here is what he imagines: that we define greed as desire to acquire to the detriment of someone else

easy as that

and degreed will be to shift focus to benefit to all and not detriment to some

that’s not marxism, communism, socialism, nor globalism

it’s just decency and honesty, within which true capitalism can thrive and blossom

please try to prove me wrong, world

paradise will reward your efforts