“It was meant not to convince but to confound.” –Rex Stout
The new druggist needs
His two atenolol w/juice
Roger settled w/Vic
In his goodbye letter
Clay is illegally sane
Earth’s oddness its gift
First let me hasten to say I am not suicidal. The title derives partly from Ben Franklin’s POOR RICHARD’S ALMANACK aphorism that “Nine of ten men are suicides.” And Ben is one of those proverbial People At The Dinner Table that I would have if I could have six of anyone who ever lived over for dinner and conversation. (Other possible candidates are Dorothy Parker, Li Po, Texas Guinan, Rex Stout, Maya Angelou, Sally Rand, Groucho Marx, Nick Drake, Isaac Asimov, Jean Toomer…it’s going to be hard to narrow it down!)
Though I’m not suicidal, I’m not taking reasonable steps to extend my life. Currently I’m about 70 pounds overweight. I don’t smoke or drink or drug or gamble, but I’m a man with a past. So by Ben Franklin’s yardstick, unless I drop a few dozen pounds and some of my less life-enhancing proclivities (recreational sleep deprivation, for instance), I will be one of the nine out of ten.
But I so long to live! But it must be a life whose quality includes full mental faculties and not too much pain!
Last night at Balboa House, a monthly East Valley poetry event hosted by my friends Debra Berman and Joe Montaño, I performed the following poem, which I will submit as fulfillment of the title of this post as my Suicide Note, Draft #817:
the old and the lonesome
November 15, 2013 at 11:59pm
less than fifty years ago people cared what she thought
commented when she changed her hairstyle
speculated excitedly when she made a vague and coy remark
about a fellow thespian of the opposite sex
now she sneaks a cigarette in her room at the independent living home
and waits for a phone call from a son or a friend
as tears slide here and there and sighs abound
she hasn’t changed much on the inside
but people care so much about the outside
slowly she acquires citizenship with this community of castoffs
the old and the lonesome whose dreams were realized but never replenished
one morning she canes her way to the lobby
scans the sign with the changeable type
9:30 TRIVIA TIME
10:00 FITNESS
11:30 LET’S CROCHET
1:00 PET VISIT WITH GILDA & NAT
2:30 VAN TO DOLLAR STORE
3:00 AA MEETING – UPSTIRS GREATROOM
she feels mild contempt for the sign’s update person and his “UPSTIRS”
she feels bereft of meaning
she goes back to her room and looks for the remote
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]
Alas, my streak of consecutive blog-posting days is over and out. I started on December 3, 2012 and posted at least once a day through April 14, 2013. I missed posting yesterday.
Ironically, the reason I missed yesterday was through engrossment in the above page, which took me till 10:35 PM to finish–and I had to report for work by 11 PM…
Here are the words to the triple acrostic:
Determined, relentless–society
Dismisses some needs–undeniably
Declares & denotes–impropriety
Denudes us at R A N D O M–inviolably
If let, preconditioned conformity
Inculcates Indulgent austerity
If FREE WILL exists, there’s enormity
In acting when viewing with clarity
Ill Fate–as the Void yawns so terribly
Intrinsic with grappling so wearily
Gigantic distresses unbearably
Gain ground with emotions shown tearily
GRACE gives us redemption felt helically
Grants warrant to forge Fate angelically
Before I tackled the acrostic, I talked to Denise about dignity, and asked her if Jesus on the cross saying “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was an example of dignity. She made a good case for a Yes answer, since it was a question and not a cursing of God.
The illustration and calligraphy that provide the backdrop for the acrostic are dignity-oriented. I have Jesus speaking French as a tip of the hat to my Canadian friend Michel Lamontagne. Hope I got it right, Michel!
One with Clay, Image and Text 