Friday, July 31, 2015
Pictures
"Take the canoli."
-So we iced the little prick using Godfather lines.
-Life imitates Art.
-Gangsters vary the script.
-Who’s influencing who?
-There’s a river in Italy flows both ways.
-How can that be?
-It be. We make it be.
Labels: gang murder, ganster, Godfather, Italy, movie, movie influence, murder, river
Thursday, July 30, 2015
The Fill-In
I breezed through the form, but what the hell!
You could put anything down!
Check Chinese and nobody cared.
Married, Single, Divorced? All three. In glee!
As always, a combination of chaos and
precision:
Since they proved crazily fussy about 14B. A large
blank you had to fill in border to border. With what?
God knows.
The question varied. Mine, this time: How far is up?
Not intended to necessarily elicit a scientific
answer, but tap your psyche in some way. I wrote
of a trip to the shore with my elderly parents.
Wrong! The woman waved her wand and it
blinked red. So...again.
No soap either with How many make anything else?
I detailing the articles in my right pocket.
The woman eventually gathered her personals
and closed up. I was still her charge, so she
led me to her crisp little apartment in the same
building.
Only a short passageway, but it took some time
because of a ranging limp that grazed both walls.
In that cozy domain, over Stouffer's Microwave Lasagne,
I first noted how terrifyinging ugly she was.
But before you say anything, I'd give King Kong a run
for his money.
She eventually produced pajamas that’d fit him!
I swam in them. And out.
England expects each man to do his duty!
I’m always okay with that. You pick the way
to show your patriotism. Still a free country.
Labels: bureaucracy, chaos and, fill in form, form, free country, government, modern society, patriotism, precision in government, sex
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Calling CSPAN ,
the morons, fre-
quently Southern,
never shy. Grand Old
Parity there. A favor
to us Eastern Brilliances,
who’d not hear such drivel
otherwise. We do require
each other: the dazzling
threads of our coherence
next to...to...?
Labels: CSPAN, Eastern, Ignorant South, moron, South, Southern
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Illi-nigh
-How can that be?
-We get it ready before he or she takes office.
-Ever been wrong?
-Yes! When the individual serves the people and not the party.
-Not in recent memory then?
-Lincoln in.
Labels: Illinois, Lincoln, party, people, political corruption
Monday, July 27, 2015
Filling In
Word circulated
to write in 14E with "14E"–and not a single letter from
the list of options representing concepts, choices...
or whatever.
At any rate, this worked for everyone until a person
was called in at random, and never returned to his family.
A lump sum was, and the family seemed satisfied.
But, thereafter, anyone who 14E'd originally
was marked Q in every paper or cyber file.
The Q's living on borrowed time went the rumor.
Pretty much all the Qs gathered in the Adirondancks
and armed themselves.
They decided to preemptively attack a motor vehicles
office on Staten Island.
Fourteen deaths resulted and the numerologists went bananas.
The government called for meetings.
Never held, so everything forgotten.
“We lurch from vague crisis to vague crisis,” concluded
Senator Oliver, aka Senator Expense Account.
Labels: bureaucracy, Expense Account, form, forms, government, numerology, revolution, senate
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Plus the Long Robe
-It's safe in the hallway at
this hour.
-Mid the bikes and scooters.
-The neighbor's kids.
-Don't they have fire regulations
around here?
-Be careful. Might apply to scythes.
Why drag that thing around, anyway?
Just symbolic.
-We all of us drag round symbolic things.
-Probably so. Let me...swirl a bit more
whipped cream into that hot chocolate.
-Thanks. This cold is unprecedented!
-Can't you hold off on me till the warm
weather.
-I've shown you the list.
-Highlighted me! It's, like, a compliment.
-It is what it is.
-Please finish up the Lorna Doones.
-And then!
-I'd still like to tie some loose ends.
Mostly hurt feelings that I never...
-They'll get over it. Or won't.
-That last howler of a wind nearly lifted
the whole apartment house!
-Means nothing to my appointed rounds.
-I could do your job.
-You'd think. But allow me to point out...
Labels: bargaining, bargaining with Death, death, depiction of death, last journey, Lorna Doone, Mr Death, scythe
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Presences
The Important Question
-How about my Online Presence?
Or my OFFline Presence, or Anywhere,
Anyhow Presence? Any fuckin...!
-Please answer the question! Acting out
belongs on the next page.
-All my presences are shitty, shoddy, or
defunct!
-I wonder...how...do you ever get a date?
-Begging.
Labels: acting out, date, interview.online presence
Friday, July 24, 2015
The Meticulous Wall
Handymen
I wasn't a Linger-Some when Mark
built his wall. Not even here then.
But very shortly after I moved in, it was
informally named for me. Since I sat there
every morning it didn't rain with croissant
and coffee, cigarette and Times.
God’s in His sky and all’s right with the world!
Mark’s quarrel with the board had nothing to do
with the wall or me.
But he was transferred to Hop Scotch, a mental
facility in the chain.
Took the wall.
Well, not really, but you'd think it.
It was gone from the entrance of the
rose garden. So cleanly, no trace existed.
I first thought I had wandered to the wrong
part of the garden that chill, gray-wisp morn.
Well, sad for me, and a disappointment for
everybody.
It liked their eye.
Anyway, so meticulous. Removing each
rock, each pebble, each wedge, etc.
Mark’s something else!
“And in the moonlight!” Clara Barkin held,
though nobody knew just when. But then
she whispered “We're still looking at things
in a typically old-fashioned way.
What if he just disappeared the wall?”
She was at a party once and he passed
a tablecloth over her, and she found
herself home drinking tea, with
Clancy the cat nuzzling for crumbs
of Pepperidge Farms Milano Cookies.
“Well a magician is not a wizard.”
“This one is!”
“Well, whichever way he took back the wall,
I'd like it restored here!”
So, both of us worked on the politics of
the thing, persuading Rickey Speller to
take Mark's place at Hop Scotch, and having
him assume Rickey's place back here with the
mere neurotics.
Done deal! and I rushed to the garden and there
it...wasn’t. Oh well...gathering up my Times
I had dropped alongside a few crackers and the
styrofoam cup half filled with leftover breakfast
coffee.
You can’t make things happen with a halfass
show of ritual.
When I had done that, I kind of staggered back
and fell onto the wall!
There I thought: Did Mark do his other handymna
chores or merely wizard them? Didn’t seem fair.
Labels: disappearing, habit, internal politics, routine, times, wall, wizard
Thursday, July 23, 2015
The Green Distance
His name set on the wall
honoring select old
players. Miscellaneous
flowers grow
next to his feet during the pro-
tracted ceremony...petals fall.
(All allowed to later
dry in parched times
for the team.) A green
distance away, two wags
listen, straddling the cylinder
holding the tarp, alert
to unroll it in rain
before the real game. “So?
I'll, like, never ever forget
whatsisname over there!"
Nods that way as the lurch-
ing ritual drones back from
past the outfield. “Hey!
I will!" exerts his mate
against whistling feedback,
whipping behind him
with his baseball cap,
as if at a horse,
forcing the stag-
gering crowd up to a bit
of entering gaiety.
Labels: Baseball, forgotten, honor, retired player, Wall of Fame
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Institution Evolving
The Signing
“The pussy Democrats made me write that in!”
Declared My Big Man! I was glad they did. If I’m to be
beaten by him, I didn’t want it indiscriminate, in
a temper tantrum.
So I signed. TV made their usual hoopla: “First slave
in 150 years blah blah. And white!”
Blue Cross Blue Shield better than I had at the mill.
Vacation days, sick leave, etc. Not bad.
So, you DO obey! No discussion. Hey! It’s been a
masquerade up to now anyway.
This strips it bare.
‘
Labels: beating, beating worker, Big Man, contract, employment benefits, Modern Slavery, obedience, Slavery
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Iowa Holiday Inn Circuit
“Our favorite second baseman is hitting .176.”
“Comes to us all! Sayonara-time.”
“Yeah. for him! But when I mentioned it to
Glasson, he seemed to equate me with the
weak player!”
“Well, he’s a little sonofabitch, and certifiable!
You and Chubby, and Earnestine built the
company! And without you alone, be bankrupt
by now!
Glasson comes in high on the hog! Pretty easy
then! AND to have his mouth now!”
“Really!"
“And another thing: without YOU...!”
Maybe his Delly too loud with this last, because
Improvs of Corn thread between the restaurant‘s
tables. Banjo, violin, bongos, castanets!
And singing
Without you
ooo-ooo
ooo-ooo
and
With with with
out out out
you you you
-- other riffs on Delly's words nearly as bright.
Even in his hurt, Mark applauds; she, as
always, blushes.
Labels: business, Holiday Inn, hurt feelings, improvisation, Iowa, motel, riff, tradition
Monday, July 20, 2015
Town Slice
Jenn-Ann slept in a inverted cowgirl hat. Concrete,
from a Hart Hiffley rodeo display.
The last thing her father had done was to wrestle
it to the top floor of the warehouse, and build a metal
ladder up its side.
Then he exited forever. The rest of the warehouse
he had designated for some business purpose
she and her mother never found out.
The bank took over and rented it to the mother as an
apartment. All wrong from the zoning viewpoint, but was
an age of municipal winking.
She sublet the first two floors to what Jenn-Ann called
The Church of The Nifty Nazarine.
Which the women joined, though it put their rights back
a century or so.
When Jenn-Ann finished her online survey for the church,
she was informed that her cat, Hobart Grimshaw the Third,
must be renamed for a female. Thus defusing her joke that she
slept up there with Hobart.
She ignored this eccleastical stricture, but called him Third thereafter. And “The Church of the Demented Nazarine.”
Her mother was all for getting along with the pastor, Carlos Nutley,
but Jenn-Ann eventually declared war.
Never materialized, since Carlos couldn't make the nut of the rent
after six months, so the women evicted him.
“And his scab-ass collection of criminals!” Jenn-Ann added,
not caring for the parishioners she had met.
Buzz Alderson has moved in with his operation making
boat cushions.
He has taken a shine to Jenn-Ann, and regularly comes up
with treats for Third.
It's no use pointing out to him that his age is more appropriate
to the mother.
He, in turn, has leased part of his floorspace to what
Jenn-Ann calls the Church of Jesus Hip Hop.
Third has migrated thence, enticed with fish bits to
stay for his spiritual attributes.
Jenn-Ann and Buzz will marry there, and sleep in the hat
together.
“It’s the personal-industrial complex!” she will wisecrack.
Labels: Church, entrepreneur, holy rollers, Romance, sex, zoning
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Eaves
"My Great-Grandma!"
Deidre brightens at
the dim attic. Night
dresses hover-
ing about dance
programs under
gummy glass,
Class-Trip snaps,
but no scrap why
she ripped out
her heart for love.
Eaves whisper thus,
not ever to a one
triumphant.
triumphant.
Labels: death, heart, love, mementos, memory, tragedy
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Abstract Discussion
-"Funny" abstracts. Takes that element out.
-From what? The general mess of things?
-Perhaps so. Look at Mash. Hot Lips and that
stick of a Major.
-You're tilting. Saying it in such a way that...
-Aren't we always?
-Depends.
-On what?
-How many squares make a circle.
-There's two here.
Labels: abstraction, comedy, funny, square
Friday, July 17, 2015
Initialing Time
The Transfiguring Glory Bosom
had to wait out the rain with
the rest of us. Then the war came.
Our Patriot Brand exhausted by
the last one, we opted for white
pills. Lowery, who tried both
us, and God, proclaimed
"You're all no fuckin good!"
NFG then hauled ass into
our vocabulary and remains
alongside TGB, first mentioned.
And DPB–-the D for Defunct.
Thus, Defunct Patriot Brand.
We say almost nothing with-
out initials. Understood. It hearts
communication. Some say Death.
Breath involves breathing.
Got that part knocked!
Labels: Battle Hymn Republic, death, initialing, patriot, staying alive, war
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Carried Interest
Old Black Joe, he carry de Interest
in de big ole sack fo De Man! The
Mississippi Mud beats his feet and
he be screamin’ "I be promise de chicken!"
“One every day! if'n you carries me too!”
De Man, he too fat t'walk now, n’ Joe he
carry him too.
But dat no good! He too heavy wit de sack,
n' Joe drop de whole kit-n-kaboodle n’
himself in de mud.
Sack, it pop open n’ make de whole world
golden light. All de Negroes comes and sings
de spirituals.
De Man he yell to shut up, n’ get dat gold
back in de sack!
“I'm requirin new Negroes,” he shout. “Two!
chickens a day.”
“Zero sum game!” Joe shout back, he dying.
“And I ends up de zero.”
“Oh who oh who will carry my Interest now?”
De fat man he sing pretty good.
But he find out de white man can be slave
like anybody else.
And de next week de new white man carry his
Interest. N' another white man do carry De Man!
N’ d’other white mens, dey learns de spirituals!
But can sing right away Old White Joe!
Labels: black, Carried Interest, Hedge Fund, injustice, Interest, Old Black Joe, Race, slave, Tax Laws Favoring Rich, taxation, Zero Sum
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Art in the Modern World...
or something
-I’m Literature here!
Thus proclaims Clance.
-Well you better figure out what the fuck you’re doing?
All mixed up with bits and megs, and wondering where
to pander--if just TV.
-A confusing time, of course, but read my poems.
-Why?
-Cuz you can’t stop asking what is it,
instead of just making a visit.
-We ain’t got time!
Labels: art, artist, computer, Literature, poet, poetry, TV
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Fetid Tent
-It was easy to become a Republican. Harder to transfigure
into the Laydown Variety. Defined as spouting “You’re right
there, Charley! You got THAT straight!”
-The Party shoving your moral compass right up your ass?
-Point me North. I’m looking for some breeze.
-How about Charlene? And not always CHARLEY all of the time?
-Fuck her! What’s the NEXT thing she’ll want?
-Can’t be answered. But make her black and crazy and run her!
Labels: black, crazy, Laydown Republican, moral compass, Republican
Monday, July 13, 2015
An Old Smoothie
Melody wouldn't leave without Smoothie, the cat.
So she sat in blue bra and panties and beige
cowgirl hat, such outfit purpling equally in the
diving light.
Hetts took the dress from atop the Lego Italian
Villa, and handed her the ukelele after she finished
putting it on.
Her resolve about Smoothie vanished. She went
down to the cab.
The Frenchman showed up and Hetts gave him
the key.
Hetts could hear him enticing Smoothie in the dark
as he cautiously descended the grimy stairs with villa.
Some odd buzzes filtered down, and "I give you
Half and Half!"
That night he dreams of Smoothie as a one-eyed Calico.
Asking Benjamin at breakfast.
"Could be."
"I must establish that Smoothie is corporeal!"
"You've never established anything!"
"I...had Half and Half with cornflakes once."
"No one has ever questioned your daring."
“We should buy some.”
“Or virility!”
Labels: cat, characters, eccentric, friends, Half and Half, imagination, Lego, moving, vision
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Art&Life
together, Me and Mamie O'Rourke
He was an old New Yorker-type story writer.
Light allusions to hidden tragedies, all indirectly told.
Until his approaching death, when things flooded.
We avoided him then.
When meat and bones assert, some grow fearful.
An e-book publisher wants to do his life works...
not many K’s or M‘s, or whatever, there.
It’s left to the estate to negotiate, and they
can’t get the act together. Each family member
has lingering hurts, but none spoken of just yet.
Labels: indirection, New Yorker Story, sophistication, story telling.
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Family
Beryl called a family meeting when Carl left her
and the babies for a hootchie-cootchie dancer.
Yeah, you read that last right.
She needed babysitting to go out looking for a job.
I announced it wouldn’t come to that.
I had gone to announcing school and gave everything
a resonant knowledge and wisdom.
Well, it didn’t. Carl back in the neighborhood
for a gas survey team, Beryl baked chocolate
chip cookies, and he homed in on that fragrance.
So, they patched it up then and there. Lots of
patching up in our family. But only because we
stick together.
This year’s picnic featured T-shirts saying
WE STICK IT OUT!
Since, Kirksy had been arrested for Indecent Exposure,
some were for editing the message, but Beryl said
you can’t stop what people say anyhow.
Labels: announcing school, chaos, class, Family, family solidarity
Friday, July 10, 2015
The Record
I'm a Second Baseman. Nine years with Cleveland,
and fadeout ones with two others.
Our agency has an office in Cleveland, and when I
drop by, a customer or two remembers.
Even my bonehead plays appreciated. By me also.
Well, anyway, the short of it: I had a career of respectable
averages, not Hall of Fame, but respectable.
Other places in the country, I haven't been heard of.
People tell me this with relish. A couple yesterday
in New York quite sharp: "Well, we never HEARD of you!"
I never understand the hate behind these comments.
The couple's face full of it. A fury. Like, somehow,
I intrude.
Labels: Baseball, Cleveland, envy, Hall of Fame, records, second base
Thursday, July 09, 2015
The Political Family
The Damascus Nudge to Greatness
His Damascus Moment passed
from participation in a strike
for roaring justice to dri-
ly mouthing the sadistic
platitudes of billionaires. Son
needed no conversion. Right
from the start, though juvenile
in matters of aristocratic humor.
A daughter in here who took
it all too personally. Feeding
bums in a mission, for one.
But, she's a woman, and, like,
who really gives a shit? Hey!
Let’s, of course, pretend
we all do. Making strange
bedfellows for that Crusade
of the Bleeding Heart
that continually departs
Victoria Station.
Labels: Bleeding Heart Liberal, Damascus Moment, righty, Road to Damascus, Woman
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Free Range or
The Mountain Goat Leaps From Precipice to Precipice
–-and back again to piss
-Two of the nicest ever, and they're getting married!
-The cauldron! Will determine if each is really nice,
or faking it.
-A percentage thing?
-Either way, I go for the nice, and seek it everywhere.
-Even the phoney...?
-Hey! We need a lubricant to keep us from each
other's throats!
-So, shake it until you make it?
-Any which way, or every which way!
-You talk in cliches.
-I'm taking that nicely. Besides, you’re one too,
-The important question always: Do you hafta
do one or two?
-Two.
-That’ll delay the revolution.
-I’m too nice for that.
-Do you think when you’re sitting there?
-Daydreams! What else?
-Well, the act itself.
-I don’t think that Mother Nature wants us
to worry so.
-She’s nice that way.
Labels: changing subjects, friends, interchange, language, wit
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
Protocols of Buy-In
Bank CEO--Electronically Cleansed Room
As I see it, we have either of two protocols.
The Swirtzky: moderate crime, return the same.
Or Dressler: let ‘er rip to freakin Valhalla of Felony!
But...if we’re apprehended in the latter, even
Laydown Republicans indict.
Labels: bank, banker, criminal, felony, Laydown Republican, Republican
Monday, July 06, 2015
Labor Policy
-What’s it with all these days off? Vacations too!
Doctors’ appointments? Do you ever, like,
freakin WORK?
-I drop by.
-I’m a Republican. Get with it!
-I do have a core job, mid the emasculating benefits.
-And is there a place where you can be adequately beaten?...just kidding!
-For how long?
Labels: benefits, corporal punishment, days off, job, Republican, vacation, vacation days, work
Sunday, July 05, 2015
Combat, No Real Fatigue
“You know,” halfway though their initial date,
“I thought I was the champion of selfish
obnoxiousness, but I've been supplanted.
All hail to the new miscreant!”
She made a sweetly fluttering reply ending with the
word, moron.
Off and running, they. And continued for several
more encounters.
Then, Here Comes the Bride, etc.
OKay okay, belay the Tracy-Hepburn, or its later
manifestations in films by Mike Nichols, Nora Ephron.
The latter: Chick Flicks with clawing techniques.
Well, clawing plus cloying, that’s Hollywood!
This marriage definitely not that second cl-!
They fought continuously. Occasional peace
treaties to lend time to regroup.
Exhausting most others.
For their ten-year anniversary, return to that arch
bookstore’s coffee bar, and repeat the original script,
just about word for word.
The pride in being able to do that sustains the usual war
for rollicking days.
And–-Oy!--years.
Labels: Ephron, fighting couple, Hollywood, Nichols, Tracy-Hepburn
Saturday, July 04, 2015
Monsters
Eyes of Green
She did a bit of screwing. To go along
with all the screwing-up.
He was okay with that. You can’t own
another’s past! etc.
Jealous! He became, her defunct frames
more than vivid. Super so, as he further
emptied her to fill them in.
It consumed him more than the present
passion, which, of course suffered.
The general air prompted her to start asking
questions of HIS romantic background.
Mutual, old-fashioned grilling sufficed to
help build a modern relationship.
Labels: couple, jealousy, mutual grilling, obsession
Friday, July 03, 2015
The Parties,
Further Explained
Republican
The answer to nothing
Democrat
The fear
Republican (cont)
but rhetoric.
Democrat (cont)
of fear itself.
Labels: Democrat, do-nothing, fear, parties, political rhetoric, Republican
Thursday, July 02, 2015
Once There Were Republicans
Business and its legislative asskissers
have declared merest minions to be
Managers, to thus avoid paying overtime.
Once, there were Republicans. Saying “We
can’t sustain absurdity, so let’s hammer out
a policy for both sides, one of good, lasting
sense.”
Once.
Labels: anti-worker, business, Business influence, overtime, Traditional Republican
Wednesday, July 01, 2015
Let There Be Light
The lampshades in Ilse's
und Commander's house
being goat, not Jew,
they caught a break.
She liked taking tattooed
men. So? Not in dispute.
Chose a few
to be offed?
Perhaps that's true.
But, not later illumed,
evidence seems to show.
Aggregates put
him to death,
not style. She,
after prolonged trials,
eventually hanged
self in prison. 60. Skin
going with
her.
Labels: Buchenwald, Ilse Koch, lampshade, Nazi, tattoo, war crimes
