eggs is
existential
full of
raw potential
quickened
by a visit
from a crowing
rooster.
eggs is
deferential
to the
exponential
ovaries though
over easy
isn’t much a
booster.
ova there
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Tag Archives: poetry
Droning Man
A man in a flimsy T-shirt and polyester running shorts and running shoes affixed to snowshoes with circular-shaped surfaces runs
On a two-inch blanket of freshly-fallen snow on a flat two-acre field on a farm whose owners have given him permission to run for an hour on their land.
He is also wearing glasses that provide a visual readout of what the drone flying overhead is recording. The drone moves according to his voice commands. His last command was for the drone to maintain a position twenty meters over his head, focal point the surface of the snow, field of view to include the running man and a circle of ten meters’ diameter with him at the center.
The conditions are ideal. The temp is just at freezing and it is windless and the snow is doing a remarkable job of retaining the impressions of the snowshoes.
What the man is doing is drawing. He himself is the dot-drawing stylus. An inset in the views reen in his glasses shows him the entire field on which he is running, with his position on the field represented by a green dot, and with his footstrikes trailing him represented as blue dots.
He has not been running long, but he is already on the second iteration of the array of comic-book-style panels that will contain the images of real-time running that he is doing now. An hour will give him enough time to fill in the panels with line drawings with enough detail to discern his facial features.
“Bogie, I want a drink,” he says, and the drone swoops down and dangles tubing connected to the modest water supply it is carrying. Three swallows is sufficient.
“Resume position above my head.” Bogie whizzes upward.
“Play ‘Running On Empty’ by Jackson Browne, any live version with David Lindlay,” he tells his audio feed.
The music starts.
“I effing love technology, I do I do I do,” he exults as he runs, his breath making a puff-pattern of condensation.
evolving romeos, alchemical juliets
once upon a time we romeos and juliets were fuzzy-headed puppies as far as love was concerned
giddy and whizzing through the high-voltage fun ride of young lust
making it up as we went along
clumsily knocking things over or up
weeping and dusting ourselves off
and growing and learning as decades pass
and we necessarily change
because
our seasoned romeo does not suit a galadrielized juliet
and we have largely shed many of the illusions that drove our pubescent chariots
.
still the feelings forged in adolescence linger
even over subsequent decades
how nice it still and always is to kiss
how nice to love
and how astonishing it is to fall into the deepness of a lover’s eyes
and how blossomous it is to be stupefied by the exchange of adorations
and to rediscover what it is to be fibrously alive
.
elderly lovers seem creepy or cute to many
but callow romeos and jejune juliets have no clue what delicate layers
and fathomless depths
may be found
if the search for true love is made lifelong
and the willingness to love wholeheartedly persists
quantum kiss entanglement
you are mildly lucky in love
with a romance beginning to bloom
and the exes and ohs
as the spiciness grows
make a grandma suggest “get a room”
.
soon your fantasies focus on one
and the others get sketchy and blurred
and the choosing will cost
opportunities lost
with the fading of daydreams absurd
.
as your multiverse gladly collapses
with a dwindlement sealed with a kiss
to clear all the fog you thus
make it monogamous
two souls entangled in bliss
Auto Auto Wash
My car,
A 2023 Kia Soul named Celeste,
Got a wash today.
She’d gotten the spattery dust-film that comes with rain
So this time round I paid two bucks extra for wax.
Nowadays
A car owner may get asked CAR WASH TODAY? on the pump display that has the card reader,
And a YES answer gives you three options
And I chose the wax one
And the receipt I got for my gas also printed the code
That I entered when I went through the carwash drive-thru
That greenlit the wax job as a pleasant nonhuman voice asked me to please pull ahead slowly.
.
Celeste is clean now
But there’s 20% chance of rain tomorrow,
40% Friday,
But the wax might make a difference in precipitation residue
But I’m pretty sure Celeste is indifferent
But auto-respect must be paid.
a good, clean look into the Abyss
when the horizon ceases retreating
and reveals itself to be the event horizon
into nothingness,
you are approaching the Abyss
with its constant, gentle tug on you,
and near-subaudible surroundsound, a compelling
whisper, both lullaby
and anthem.
if you anchor yourself to the still-here
and lean over a bit
it’s a rare opportunity
to see and hear that obliterative destination
and, if sufficiently defiant,
to spit in its non-eye.
.
a good, clean look into the Abyss reveals it to be
a nonreflecting mirror,
a sensory-deprivational membrane, deep
yet infinitely thin, in which your speculative notions
are trampolined and echoed back into your head.
the lullaby? you have hummed it yourself all
your life, from God i just want some sleep to
there must be peace and quiet somewhere…
the fight song that kept you going
when you were on the brink of breakdown:
i can do this one more day, i swear/that’s all i can commit to, I’m aware.
you continue fearlessly looking into the Abyss
and sensory deprivation causes crazy colors to swirl
like a melted bowl of electric-rainbow sherbet,
and snatches of deceased-friends conversation,
surely hypnotically suggested and induced,
drift up.
no one is really there
yet a throng is UNreally there, making itself heard
as loudly as the imaginary numbers
essential to mathematics.
any spit you had intended to launch into the Void
has evaporated; or maybe the Abyss took it from you.
it is time to back away.
.
a notion persists
long after you retreat to the safety of solidity:
we are not alone
when we cease to be.
desire and reluctance
the apneatic man wants air/and gasps/and gets some/as he awakens.
his mouthbreathing has made him thirsty./down the hatch some water goes.
now his appetite rears up/and tells him he needs steak and shrimp/at his favorite sports bar & grille./his appetite adds,/furtively,/that it would be nice/if a certain woman were there.
the certain woman IS there./she glances up when he comes in./he sees that his usual seat at the bar is vacant/and he strolls over and takes it.
he and the woman/have always sat at opposite sides of the bar/and have never exchanged words.
now, though, they look at each other./across a distance of twelve feet or so/they share the fact/of awareness of the other’s existence.
the restrooms are on his side of the bar./as she passes him on the way to the ladies’/he summons enormous courage/and gives her another glance/and says a casual “hey.”
after she is done in the ladies’/she gives him a little grin as she passes/and says mutedly/”hey yourself, cowboy.”
she rejoins her friends and says something/and they glance his way/and one murmurs sotto voce/and they giggle.
his heart flips around a little. he thinks of how/from the moment he awoke/he had needs, for air and then water/and they were quickly met. he is here for sustenance…
and perhaps companionship…
it could happen…
and then his mood is shattered, his hopes are dashed.
she has pulled from her purse (o God no) a pack of cigarettes.
TILT. game over./nothing can ever happen between them.
thankful that the bar lady hadn’t gotten round to him, he quickly exits, squinching his eyes to the still-high sun.
brainwringing
pursuant to not going gentle, nor gently,
nor genially into that goodbadindifferent night,
i challenge and chivvy my sulky brain
to produce, which is why you are reading this.
.
it had been a long day.
i told my brain we needed a new poem, pronto.
my brain said, “i got nothin.'”
“that is a lot of hooey,” i shot back,
“you got plenty,
but you are lazy
and I shall have to wring you out.”
i reached into my head
with my third and imaginational hand
and single-handedly pulled my brain
[popping sound]
out of my head,
held its spongy form before my eyes,
and squeezed.
.
a few droplets–
cherry gumdrop-flavored teardrop-shaped droplets–
oozed from my brain and I shook them free,
compelling them to hang suspended
and reveal their contents
when touched.
.
i touched the leftmost cherry teardrop
and it said in a chimy voice
desire and reluctance
conduct civil war. the trick will be to write that one
without revealing whom you desire.
i touched another.
get inside the head of an ICE recruit.
another.
a wave slaps the viewpoint character in the face
and she gets cold saltwater in her nose
and she cries saltwater, becoming daughter and mother to the sea.
i stuff my brain back into my head.
i drink the cherry teardrops.
I stop writing for now.
Rig/Ma/Role
1. Rig
In order to be a functional professional tomato slicer
You need a pair of slip-resistant shoes
You need an apron
You need a hairnet (plus a beardnet if your facial hair exceeds 1/8″)
You need six gloves, and each hand must wear a glove sandwich of vinyl glove, mesh-cloth cut-resistant gloves, vinyl glove (nitrile gloves may be used instead of vinyl if there is an allergy)
You need protective sleeves on your arms
A compliant work uniform
A large container to throw tomato scrap in for possible use as salsa ingredients
A sheet tray (layman’s “cookie sheet”) or the lid to an XXL container to rest the hand-operated tomato slicer on that will keep tomato juices and seeds from making a mess on your station’s work surface
Product trays to put the sliced tomatoes in
A roll of 12″ plastic film in a box with a built-in cutter to wrap the tomato trays in
Labels that accurately describe net tomato weight, creation date, use by date, and description (“Sliced Tomatoes”) to affix to the plastic film after wrapping
And you will need two tomato slicers,
One of which is yourself
.
2. Ma
I never called my late ma Ma
Nor even called her Mother
But since our time is limited
I call my brother Brother.
.
3. Role
Today I have been a sleeper, an alarmist, a driver, an idler, an employee, a tomato slicer, a diner, a puzzle solver, a correspondent, a customer, a distant admirer, a fertilizer manufacturer, and a poet. The last two roles are not mutually exclusive.
Betty Bette Bettie and then Ted Ted Ted
Betty Bacall won Bogart’s heart
Bette Davis was Baby Jane
And Bettie Page; ah, she was naughty and smart
Turned bondage to Craft and fetish to Art
But all three had knocked over an applecart
For delectation and gain
All are gone but all remain.
.
Ted Williams Ted Danson Ted Kennedy too
One hit one kept bar one made scandal
One demonstrates what might testosterone do
When a man burns the hedonist’s candle
One went out a slugger one’s still in the mix
One hung in and passed legislation to fix
The wrongs of the right with their stones and their sticks
So it goes as new parents will dandle
All the babes bills and bliss they can handle.
One with Clay, Image and Text 