scooters, skateboards, cardboard-signers,
motorized devices,
would have had sidewalk designers
smoking herbs and spices.
mere pedestrians are weaving
here and there whilst cringing
trick bikes bounce and disbelieving
walkers risk unhinging.
let’s make future sidewalks wider.
two lanes? now we’re talking.
stiff fines for the non-abider:
SLOW LANE — NO NON-WALKING.
in less than two hours the doc will slice my hand and wrist
so clean sheets go on the bed NOW
and as always the fitted sheet tries to not live up to its name
making its mischief first by pretending to be Portrait when it is Landscape
then by spontaneously shrinking three millimeters so that tug mightily as you will the corners never quite line up
not without wrestling and tugging and mattress-lifting and knee-balancing and cursing
but there is some comfort with these machinations in having remembered to perform this uncomfortable task pre-op
and not with fresh incisions
The page begins with the Quadratic Formula, which, in my younger and more phony-baloney days, I tried to impress my then-girlfriend, next-wife, the former Joni Froehling, by deriving, via the “completing the square” trick and other manipulation. She is no longer married to me, and who can blame her?
A masterful Valley of the Sun poet, Jed Allen, gave me a copy of his awe-inspiring chapbook THE FEAR OF ALGEBRA in appreciation of my reading of his poem “Zero Yard” at the Caffeine Corridor poetry event more than a year ago. Ever since, I have wanted to return the favor, and with this page I hope I have.
The words to the acrostic:
Attitude adjustments sometimes end up on a slab
Lose a Johnny Weismuller–or was it Buster Crabbe
Gain a Tarzan wannabe–a grey-stoked stufféd shirt
Err if you must on Caution’s side: man’s slaughter, shy of Murder
But in the diagram above as x is offed by a
Really not the culprit, who will always get away
Alias: The Solver, of manipulative manna
& a wealth of victims whose mystique is drowned in channel
The theme and meaning of the poem and its related ancillary material are left as an exercise for the student. Ironic hint: spelling out a solution murders Mystery. [enigmatic smile; fade to black]
One with Clay, Image and Text 