Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Ducky Wucky
Incredibly balmy morning
for February in Philly, so I
drove to the Wissahickon Trail
for a walk.
An extraordinary public park.
Urban, though parts of it
would put you in mind of
Montana or someplace.
With the beautiful weather
I pushed a bit hard, especially
since I was coming off a cold.
At any rate, had to rest just
a bit, and found myself sharing
a bench in a dank hollow with
a large fellow and his rubber duck.
"Beautiful Morning" I exhaled.
He smiled and lifted the duck
as if it would reply. Put it down
between us.
Anyway, we sat there, this odd trio.
For some reason I felt no strangeness
or danger.
But when I eventually rose to leave
he put a gentle hand on my arm.
Anyway, we were to walk together then.
He pantomimed the duck splashing
and then floating. So, we had to
settle the duck.
And I was needed for the task. Took all
of ten minutes to find the right pond, really
not more than a puddle.
At that point, I got firm but still friendly.
I laughed "Goodbye. Thank you for our
little walk. And goodbye Ducky Wucky also!"
With that he brightened a thousand watts!
Spoke his first words. "How...NAME?"
Through some serendipitous...something,
I had guessed its actual name.
He embraced me. Kissed me on the forehead.
All the while Ducky Wucky circled in a breezy
current of muddy water.
Well, I finally did extract from the pair.
Walked faster than I thought I could.
Scared?
Somewhat. In the cautious city-way,
but excited too.
The weather had been a one-day
phenomenon, thus a couple of weeks before
I got back to the trail.
There I got chatting with a retired engineer
from GE. Wiry one. Glasses. Finally got round to
the large guy and his duck.
“Oh yeah, Jepp, his name. He stopped coming
because the duck died. Don’t ask me how
this happens. Just does.”
“There were days not that bad, where I could
have gotten back here?” I wondered.
"Don't worry about it. You and I will chip in
and I'll buy another. I’ll leave it on a bench,
and the word will get around through a network
of such people."
And sure enough it did! I met the large fellow
a score of odd-spaced times for the same ritual.
So so foolish, and yet I couldn't stop somehow.
Well, where’s the harm?
Lifts my day at any rate.
Maybe I’m the simple one after all.
By the way, my first time back, he held
up two fingers. So, Ducky Wucky Two!–-
the engineer’s input methinks.
Labels: characters, eccentricity, engineer, odd couple, rubber duck
Monday, February 27, 2017
The Necessary Invention
“Crusty” the mildest
appellation describing
Sloan, City Editor
of the New Haven Journal Courier.
Who one Two-
AM had only
a rookie to obscenely dispatch
to a late November four-alarm
conflagration!
Youngster was to phone in,
and a copywriter sat at
a typewriter to wait. Sirens
incessantly! As if the whole city afire!
No call as deadline approaching!
Finally! The deathless words:
“It's all confusion here!”
Well, the writer milks out
a few details to assemble a story.
Street Location, what the Fire Chief
blurted, a few names of those
standing around in underwear
and soaked midst black webs
of icy hoses.
We make a story when faced
with the virulence of confusion.
The deal with each other is often
that we're not scorned
for it. With Modern Politics, of course,
that decent bet, too, is off
the technical table.
Labels: confusion, fire, Journal-Courier, newspaper.New Haven, politics, technical
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Change
in the Gang
-I respect Del and Rands and Tessie. And they’ve
started praying together.
-Bullshit with long faces?
-That’s IDEA, mere REACTION! I start everything with people.
If they’re decent, may be something to what they say and believe.
-And cost you nothing to wait?
-Exactly.
-As the old song says “I’m waiting for ships that never come in.”
-Keep waiting.
-A stupid choice. And nice.
Labels: choices of friends, cynicism, friends, Hope, judging friends
Saturday, February 25, 2017
The Physicist With All the Answers
Ryan and Early Discuss
Dead-Late-Night Radio
-What’s latest?
-We’re living in an infinite hologram and...
-Uh huh?
-it’s a fake!
-Therefore we’re fakes?
-If we exist at all.
-I’m going back to God!
-But some of those stories are awful!
-Hey! Win some, lose some.
-Gotta have Faith, I guess.
-What the hell IS that, anyway?
-When you get it, you got it.
-I won’t know.
-You putting on your Dummy Act?
-It’s possible.
Labels: friends, grand theory, hologram, late night radio, physics
Friday, February 24, 2017
Cherchez
The last thing we worked
on was trying to ascertain
how two men could have very
similar life experiences, and
yet end up with extraordinary
ly different personalities.
Thus, JJ of Omaha, Happy-Go-
Lucky, and DS from suburban
Pennsylvania, Tick-Tight!
We gave each the other's file
to get their takes also.
Both thought the other crazy.
Now, I omitted the chief difference,
or difference-maker: Laurel.
She lived with JJ and was entirely lovely.
On the surface.
Was it she helped make him so casual
and very often careless? we wondered.
But before we could manipulate anything
for the purposes of Science, DS started
emailing her. Mostly nervous messages
of his ailments and fears. Innumerable.
Struck a chord after a bit, and now Laurel
has moved to Pennsylvania!
What does it do to the experiment? We’re having
a big meeting of the Project Director and staff.
Preliminarily, DS is–perhaps a stretch to call it thus--
but...happy.
She agitates him further than he’d like at frequent times, but to
a good end.
And so is JJ, back in Omaha! Ecstatic really. Yet, calmly
trying to take himself, and life, more seriously.
Thus, anyway, “The Laurel Factor.” Oh yes!
Much much study is needed imho.
Labels: powerful woman, relationship, social experiment, Woman
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Truth Mid Guns
Can't sleep, thus
scare up
Russian TV
on my phone.
So, fullest denial
they helped
Commissar Trump
steal our election.
"No smoking guns!" sneer they.
Though last satellite flyover
showed only smoking guns.
Anomaly of course. The way
one might show Truth. Fetching
laughs from everywhere.
Labels: Commissar Trump, hack election, RTV, Russian TV, smoking gun, steal election
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Fiances’ Club
Even the silliness of our version of
Sadie Hawkins Day could hardly derail
the long-standing Fiances’ Club.
That is before Evvy and Renz.
They received each other in a random
drawing and spent a few hours together.
Later described by both in their mutual
statement as "A sexual and emotional
explosion!"
A Legislative Investigation now recommends
the club be disbanded.
But...cooler heads. Most of the important officials
claim you can't possibly regulate every aspect of
personal behavior.
Well, yes and no. The two impromptu lovers have
been fined under old Lascivious Carriage laws.
But it has since been rescinded by their marriage.
In a perfect world, the severely-wronged parties,
Evvy's Jordan and Renz's Delilah, would meet and...
Well, guess what?
And even more incendiary than the disruptive ones.
“So, ultimately no harm, no foul,” laughs Representative
Karker. “Old Hollywood. Black and white. Romantic
Comedy. Life’s a romantic comedy!”
But Honorable Dell Dempster shouts “Hell in a handbasket!”
And who’s to say he’s wrong?
Labels: commitment, fiance, law and sex, Romance, sex, sexual attraction
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
When Plants Run For Elective Office*
I’m still for Begonia--though many
reservations.
It, at least, is not playing.
Unlike Shasta Daisy, and insanely
irresponsible followers.
Oh you can make anything a joke!
What’s so hard about that?
But a few of us persist in standing up!
*idea from Louis Black
Labels: belief, election, flowers, plants, political absurdity, political belief, run for office
Monday, February 20, 2017
Spoiler
Laura
In memory more
browns and creams
than bw:
Illusion, though.
Watching
the noir detective
fixing on her
portrait mid
softest deco interiors
after her murder.
Snuffed around style
abounding,
not like now.
People beautiful-
ly dressed, man-
ners framed to match
often.
Two other men
are locked
forever to her
in prismatic
sexuality.
Foils and Fox?
However, she's
not dead!
I forgot how
the plot twists that.
Twelve
and now old.
What persists
with her "death?"
The song
haunts on.
Is it sound
harrows
the most?
So writing about or
talking up anything
spoils it?
Heisenberg with feeling.
Labels: Heisenberg, kaleidoscope, Laura movie, Laura song, point of view, prism
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Departure
-Oh my God! Who did such a...?
-Nobody he really knew. Just talked to a few times.
-Apparently that was enough.
Labels: acquaintance, foul play, murder
Saturday, February 18, 2017
After "Breakfast"
The others covered me
with garbage.
Fresh, so it still gave
off some heat.
Then they all chanted the
Hymn of Praise to The Wealthy.
For in other sectors the garbage
flash-burned into the air, and
not available.
There The Wealthy are cruel, or
the intellectual ones, Population
Controllers.
The children blend the chant with
their games.
I drift away into an odoriferous nap,
pleasantly listening.
Labels: diystopia, garbage, Population Control, poverty, religion and wealth, wealth
Friday, February 17, 2017
Thumbnail
MH
Both male and female:
“Made to be Hurt.”
Gang shoves the two together.
We drink and don’t care.
Nor do they.
Are you reeling yet? Sicker?
Are they?
All still unafraid?
Labels: Fools rush in, foreboding, frightening experiment, manipulative, matchmaking, neurotic, relationship, sensitive
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Right Is Might
sorta
-Apparently, Pence is sticking Evangelicals
everywhere in government.
-When will it stop?
-Won’t! Spread to state and local too! I can see
The Apostle Paul giving you the driver’s test.
-I’ll take Mother Teresa. Less emphasis on Rules
of the Road!
-Women come in so many more varieties!
-Glory Halle-fuckin-lujah!
Labels: Apostle, Evangelicals, religion and government, Right Wing Government, VP Pence, women
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
States
-Jesus Meek and Mild.
That's me, Baby!
-Uh uh. I've seen you
operate in this glorified
boiler room. Pirates off
the Barbary Coast.
-Avast Maties!
-But with computer and cell,
not cutlass.
-Tools of the trade!
-But...how can you reconcile
the two images. That is...
SOMEtimes, puzzlingly, you ARE
Jesus etc.
-I don't. Don't even try.
-Doesn't it make for terrific
conflicts?
-Not in the least.
-Hypocrisy then!
-This is America! Hypocrisy
is the Golden Mean.
-I'm...glad we had this little
chat.
-No you're not.
-No I'm not.
Labels: Boiler Room, Golden Mean, hypocrisy, Pirate, reconciling, schizo business
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Struggle or No
are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and
pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.”
-Thanks for quoting that. Let’s call up the gang and go sledding.Jeanette got those huge thermoses for hot chocolate.
And we’ll sing later into the super-frozen air! While the bonfire pops and pops!
-It all sounds too good. And nice. Any struggle in there?
-Not a bit of it!
Labels: cold, friendship, lighter view, shared experience, sledding
Monday, February 13, 2017
One Christmas
the Army gave me
a five-pound box of nuts.
Put it under my bunk
and took it out every once
in a while to chew.
Meditatively. The box
announcing, first, its provenance.
Something like
Nut Assortment. Grade-A, M1 A1
and on and on in chains of numbers.
Stenciled.
Every system must put nuts
in their place.
The sitting and chewing was not
a social act. Other troopers distantly
doing their things. Blurs. Well, any life
lends definitions of loneliness.
One of mine.
Labels: army, Christmas, gift, isolation, loneliness, system
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Biddle-zy-Wump-Wump
A Southern Attorney General is after Jerr
for his little carnival doll.
It's not the usual Capitalistic screwing,
of course, obscene profit margin, but the
medical cures hinted at in the enclosed
brochure.
Taiwan makes the doll for $1.47 and
Jerr sells it for $38. He throws in
the large button battery.
"Wumps" walks a bit, then falls down.
Gets up, falls again.
“Children learn you can fall again and
that it's all right!”
So claims Jerr.
His lawyer tells him to expect some
brief jail time.
This inevitability brings a lecture to
the rest of us. How come the true mega
thieves in AMERICA GET AWAY WITH...?
Well, they just do. Kick against some
other pricks!
He threatens to move.
But we inform him that he's already in
the sleazy paradise of all time.
And, even in his horrible moral upset, he
seems to know that.
Labels: American, American Capitalism, con, con man, doll, Law, mail order fraud, mega thieves, toy
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Children with flies on their faces
Quickest example of Capitalism I can give you?
Children with flies on their faces.
In Africa, other hellholes?
Some here.
Labels: Africa, Capitalism, children in poverty, disease, flies
Friday, February 10, 2017
The Language Market
Real Estate or
a Wondrous Sense of Wonder
(+ Entitlement?)
Just Propulsive, Really
Cliff and Marie bought
the Chalet Model.
Actually, not much bigger
than their old studio apartment.
"I'm wondering where we'll put
all our shit," wondered she.
"Toss half. Any half."
"Why do they call it that?"
"Why do they call anything anything?"
Labels: exaggeration, marketing, Middle Class, pretense, Real Estate, selling
Thursday, February 09, 2017
His Political Friend
-When did you last tell the truth?
-I’d tell you but I’d lie.
Labels: alternative facts, politics, Truth, truth in politics, veracity
Wednesday, February 08, 2017
Trapped In Another's Mind
Yuent's only royalty came
from the Dixie-Whistling
Potato Peeler.
Finally, friend Henny convinced
him to go big.
In his regular job as maintenance
man at Little Jeb Early's Distillery,
he had access to the necessary tools.
A year later, Gert and Henny were
invited to Yuent's bungalow.
All hell broke loose. No, really.
The door opened to brilliance and
an overpowering stench.
Spun Henny around, an elbow striking
Gert, who ran as if her hair afire.
Was. Plunged into nearby Brunson's Pond.
The new police chief waited for the firemen
to finish, and then found no bodies. Neither
man. Gert in hospital for shock and burns
etc.
From Harvard, and kept their files
on his desk thereafter. Labeling both
"AD?"
For Another Dimension.
Henny's received the additional designation
TM.
Labels: dimension, dimensions, experiment, invention, mind capture
Tuesday, February 07, 2017
Buzz and Little Buzz
Buzz helms our Flyers Club, and is an Alien.
Little Buzz, recently-joined, is an Alien also.
Only communicates with with Buzz by--what else?--buzzing.
Buzz mostly speaks the King's English to us, and is nicknamed The Brit.
Our club mostly consists of married and impromptu couples, some single men and women.
Of the latter, the tomboys we call “Muck Maidens” since they're the loudest and most obscene when the players are mucking it up along the boards.
The last memory I have of such brutal activity was when a New York Ranger shouted, mid insults as to a Flyer's mother, “What the hell's all that buzzing?”
At that point, our Jeanette Plessy got into his face and he looked darkly shocked.
By the way, Buzz permits no disparaging remarks as to the fairer sex.
Has experienced various romances along the years, and concludes with reverence that women are absolutely remarkable.
Little Buzz seems to agree. Hard to judge.
Labels: alien, fan club, fans, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers
Monday, February 06, 2017
Kneeling in the garden in the rain
the gradual soaking
as I'm nearly blind.
And don’t know
the birth
names of the wild-
er plants glimpsed
as in vaguer dreams,
Carlos winnows
things weekly, hence.
For some reason,
I grow impatient
to be drenched!
The air not being water
enough.
Labels: age, garden, gardening, rain, senses
Sunday, February 05, 2017
Best times
I wasted it
Like the nerves
stopped shaking
up, eased back,
breathed in measure,
waiting
for fun.
Labels: good times, nerves, wasting, wasting life
Saturday, February 04, 2017
Afterward
But, two years passed.
Finally, he did.
End of protracted story?
Depends.
In the Tunnel he brags “I warned EVERYone,
one one
one one
one…”
Friday, February 03, 2017
Definition
-Hey! Her business.
-Why don’t we hear more about the humble saints in our otherwise disheartening midst?
-Just defined Rhetorical Question?
Labels: dedication, humility, rhetorical question, saint
Thursday, February 02, 2017
The Couple That Just...
-They just sort of stopped.
-Died?
-No, just slowwwwwed down.
-Who doesn't?
-Not like this. For example, after
breakfast, they plan dinner.
-Not that unusual?
-The whole day?
-In...discussion?
-Naturally.
-But...something must impinge. Appointments
with various gerontologists one might think?
-Very little gets in their glacial way.
-Do the "children" visit?
-Of course! And they're roped into the
Great Plan of the Day!
-Excruciating!
-To say the least. Oh well, they'll die,
sooner than later. And probably together.
-How will anybody tell?
Labels: daily plan, fussy, old, plan
Wednesday, February 01, 2017
Two Knowing Each Other
-Those women become men? Do they
get big boners?
-Undoubtedly! You remember Lucy Double-M?
-She’s one?
-Out in middle front when she once just did top.
-Was a pulchritudinous female!
-No longer.
-That seems...a tragedy.
-Or something?
-Whatever. And what was THAT?
-A little pat on the ass.
-What FOR?
-To encouraged your knowledge, and so you’ll
love the fear of your proclivities.
-My girlfriend and I handle the later.
-You two give hetero a bad name.
-Hey! What can I say? We wax and wane.
-Christ! Does life hafta be this dull?
-Change things up, then, and become a lady!
-Not for me either.
-Maybe they give month trials.
-Keep talking. May be a fruitful experiment.
-You’re already half there. Do you read Male Vogue?
-There is no Male Vogue.
-Too bad!
Labels: friends, men, sex, sex change, sexuality, Vogue, women
