i am imagining/expanding my horizon as a sculptor/by sculpting the more than two hundred individual bones/of a human skeleton
and having done that/have the bones be three-dee scanned/and fabricated in porcelain/with a three-dee printer/in enormous quantity/and variety of sizes
and with this huge number of hellish tinkertoys/assemble odd dioramas/such as a bone house/surrounded by a picket fence/made of femurs/connected by clavicles
or a portrait of lincoln/with tiny carpal bones/assembled into his beard/and eyebrows/and a little patella/for his wart
the bones could make anything/from petunias to starships
but what has indelibly seared its image into my brain/is a ribcage and upper spine assembly/within which/is a heart-sized skull
the skull would be made not of porcelain but silicone
and via interior bones and a small motor/and maglev tech/would beat like a heart/faster if excited/slower if asleep
and could travel within the ribcage/peering out of the cage of the ribs/with its eye sockets
“Why are you here to have your memory tested?” “I forgot. –Joking!”Beginning of interview phase of neuropsychological testing for patient Gary Bowers, March 10, 2025
we had my pal marty on speakerphone/so he could give input on my cognitive issues
i described blanking out on names and forgetting i had done things
marty confirmed my argumentativeness/but said he’d learned to be more understanding/and i added “we both have”/and we agreed that my directional dyslexia/is nothing new
we bid marty farewell and thanks/i ended the call/ and dr. m commenced the testing
she did stuff like read a list of words/and have me recall as many as i could/in any particular order
then some numbers in strings progressively long
there was one segment involving making a sort of cryptogram transcription/of random-order letters of the alphabet
the worst i did was the test where i was shown an array of six shapes for ten seconds/and asked to draw them from memory
i sucked at that one
then she turned me over to her assistant e/who told me two stories and asked me to retell them/as accurately as i could
had me use blocks to reproduce two-colored designs
read me a list of paired words like “ice°cream” and “wood°fire” and then another list/and asked me which words had been on the first list
there was another list of paired words/and i was asked to describe how they were similar
“habit” and “tradition” were one of the pairs
and there was plenty of other stuff/and somewhere in there i found out/that I don’t know what the hell “pavid” means
the last and most fun thing was simply reading a list of words/that were increasingly unlike the way they were pronounced/and i was proud to give “hyperbole” the four-syllable treatment/and to add some french nasality to “piquant”
but the last word was a mideast (i think) doozy/whose last three letters were i d h/and i am sure i mispronounced it/but equally sure/that none of my fellow glendale high school class of 72 graduated/would get it right either
.
after the testing came feedback from dr. m/that filled me with jazzy joyous comfort
In the lively arena of Social Media political discussion
Someone might post something that espouses a viewpoint you abhor, and you counter their point with facts and logic, thinking your response beyond reproach and repercussion,
But behold, there are those who don’t like what you say and therefore don’t like you and they are happy to let you know
That you are the Scum of the Earth and you are The Problem and why don’t you crawl back under the rock you crawled under or make like a tree and leave or hang your head in shame and go.
Your logic, your facts, your reasoning cut no ice with certain true believers
Who think beliefs are like votes and once they have voted they are forever devoted and instead of counter-logic and superior reason they reach for pitchforks and torches and meat cleavers,
And one more tool in their arsenal is a favorite of passive-aggressives who have nothing to say because lazy or cowardly but oh gee
Behold a way to mark the territory: the insidious Laugh Emoji.
It is the weapon of choice for those too ineloquent to speak but with an urge to mock
And don’t want to take the time to comment, preferring to hit and run, deride and dash, with the subtlety of a caveman’s club rather than the finesse of the nerve pinch of Mr. Spock,
But when you ask What’s So Funny? they like as not use another Laugh Emoji, wiggling away easily
In the manner of the passive-aggressive, just effing with you with minimum effort, quickly and weaselly.
But, Friends, please keep on speaking your truths and taking your stands, because it is vital to oppose this Rush Limbaugh and that Tucker Carlson and other Bull Connor,
And if you get a Laugh Emoji, realize it says more about them than about you, and wear it like a badge of honor.
.
Grateful acknowledgement to the spirit of Ogden Nash for the use of his style.
the garlic bread end beckoned/murmuring that seven oven minutes at threefifty/would make it perfect/and so it was
as i munched i realized/that the frequency of nocturnal bathroom visits/was increasing/and the next visit to the urologist/might be dire/and naturally my hypochondriacal imagination/leapt forward to end-of-life issues/stark as the zipper-sound/of a body bag
dancing away from such morbid musings/i thought happily of the weekend now imminent/and the poetry I would hear/the friends I would see/and the meal after the reading
but for some bizarre reason/the image of a scottish terrier’s hindquarters/with a furiously wagging tail/tugging the tender flesh of the perineum hither and yon/popped into my head/and won’t unpop
The work she’s done endures in realms not chimeless.
The Clay at times transcends–
.
Now hold on just a second, Buster. You have set yourself up for failure. Sure, you will find more rhymes for Pottery and Timeless, but soon you’ll resort to Snottery and Slimeless and even worse, and the Poetry Gods will mock you dismissively. You’ve got the easy-rhyming Clay and the not-bad Potter and the even-better Pot to work with. Start over!
But–but–I wanted to do something with words no one has used before…
Sometimes there’s a reason for things never being done before, Bud. Here’s what you do. Go back to the potter’s wheel and MAKE that ‘timeless’ thing. It might take you a year, but it will be time well spent. Give the world something to marvel at, THEN write about it.
Yeah, that makes sense. But that’s doing things the hard way, isn’t it?
No, fella. That’s doing things the infinitely more rewarding way.
