Sunday, April 01, 2018
Memoir
-When I got to the end I was spent.
So, made it up after that.
-That’s the part they’re praising.
Comparing to Remarque and
other big war guys.
-Silly.
-How did it make you feel?
-Empty.
-And now?
-Emptier.
Labels: aftermath, chaos, exhaustion, morality, Policy, regret, Remarque, strategy, Vietnam, war
Friday, October 13, 2017
Finders and Keepers
More dangerous than put-
together, careening through
attics looking for some-
thing I couldn’t misplace
its place,
but forgot.
Organizing things
Is the surest ticket
to chaos.
But uncovering sentiment-
al artifacts past their shelf-
life of shame?
We quiet ones
need such,
however late.
Labels: chaos, life's artifacts, lost, organizing, searching, shame
Thursday, September 28, 2017
The Man Who Put Everything
in Impeccable Order
has it all go bust
one Summer day.
It’s still and hot
and he grieves
in icy sweat.
Concludes, rightly, that
he’s a born Snicklefritz.
But, what can be done?
Letting go of the microscopic
as an initial try.
He does this, and his breathing
improves. Been holding his
breath in fits and starts
for many years.
Great progress, really!
Then...Gretchen...
a disaster to both organized
and scattered, she shreds
BIG PICTURES!
As a result, he Snicklefritzes
everything! She, endlessly
amused. He
has done the world a favor tak-
ing her! (Three men contemplated
suicide. A fourth stopped play-
ing with himself.)
A monument to him might
someday be erected...
or erased.
At uncertain time.
Irredeemable place.
Labels: chaos, female, female power, order, organization, screw-up, sex
Sunday, January 08, 2017
Mayhem Academy
I started with harmless jokes
but the Faculty became restless.
So, offered generalities that
glittered a bit.
Finally "Quantify!" screamed they.
I signaled the projectors, and figures
and graphics sped by, which I tried
qualifying even before they shouted
to do just that!
But it all equaled mess.
The faculty stared fighting each
other, fists with the men, and
severely cutting remarks from
the women.
Though one, Professor Marline Rupp,
smashing a chair over the hammy back
of Doctor Hester Giggons.
My Introducer, Hanley E. Destry, sped
back to the podium to attempt imposing
order.
Finally crying in joy. "Knowledge
is so wonderful! Such a divine process!
We are blessed with this mayhem!"
I had doubts, but agreed strenuously.
Or he'd block my degree.
Sex occurred in the front row, and most
stopped to watch on the monitors.
Cheers.
Labels: :knowledge, academic, academic chaos, academic gathering, chaos, degree, fighting, hothouse, infighting, knowledge industry, multimedia, quality, quantity, sex
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Rutabagas Are Constant Numbers
-This saying what you please
when you please didn’t
start with Trump.
-Chaos!
-It has always announced
that it’s all a joke anyway,
so? What’s the difference?
-Life is Trash TV where nothing
connects? Nihilism up the bung hole!
-My first wife is the sick benchmark!
-But you escaped her sane!
-Rutabagas Are Constant Numbers
Labels: chaos, Nihilism, reality show, surrealism, Trump, TV
Sunday, July 17, 2016
The Blend
“Let’s see now, which one are you?”
He’s addressing JMM, Jesus Meek and Mild.
“Oh yes, here it is on my clipboard. You’re
WASM, Wise Ass Smash Mouth.”
Thus the new orderly mixed up the men,
and they went ahead and played the new parts.
The physicians would have easily straightened
it out, but they were replaced by Indian Doctors,
speaking an English that went out with Kipling.
They brought with them, also, tea-times, and
often had Earl Grey and biscuits as the patients rioted.
All not chaos, however, since the highly-organized
Dr Caruthers Caruthers brought onboard to shepherd
this insane anachronism.
He switched back JMM and WASM for one. And decreed
no cricket until after visiting hours. So...smooth running!
And for years.
Exacted its toll from him, and he took up a sort of fat,
middle-aged ballet that had been sweeping fitness circles.
The dumpier female Indian Doctors joined him, but plantar
fasciatus retired him from the art, and one of them assumed
the male role in productions.
The patients brought in, and JMM and WASM displayed genuine grace.
Perpetually the jokes about inmates taking over the asylum,
of course, but they manage a blend at Whispering Falls.
Labels: asylum, chaos, dancing, delusions, fitness, insane, organization, patients, staff, treating insane
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Wordsworth
Entirely by accident or Fate?
They meet after a year. She has
softened, and would no longer
say such vicious things.
And he would check his thick head
at the door!
Now the old sickening chaos of their both bolting the apartment at once! hung in the present air.
Neither in a relationship presently, though
the recovery period was over.
Both made excuses not to, but they
ended up in their Chinese Restaurant.
Where the waiter looked puzzled,
but said nothing.
The evening went well, if hurt still tugged.
Until. "How is Wordsworth?" asked he.
The most devastating question possible.
"I thought YOU took him!"
“Well...” she finally concluded in tears,
“somebody adopted him or he’s dead!”
“When you came back for your stuff,
he wasn’t...?” He had to pin it on her,
guilt too horrible.
The evening ended. Both too shaken.
Wordsworth not deceased, but feral.
A table in a cramped room off the kitchen,
where the waiter left plates, before scraping
the contents into the trash.
Wordsworth, gray rail, squeezed in
nightly from the alley, but moved quickly
out this one after sniffing the chopsticks.
Labels: breakup, cat, chaos, Chinese Restaurant, feral, fighting, former lovers, guilt, personality
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Two Marriages
Maxie-A flips pancakes for Marie and their “Tribe of Brats.”
“Henslow Trevelyan Peters and his Belle-Hester
can’t sell their Top Architect’s Rambler of a house. They naturally fight.”
“Sad!” from Marie who has finally lifted a portion to her lips, only to put the fork down and help the twins cut.
A 5 and 6 play cars beneath the table.
“It’s a Harry Gordon!” he mocks.
Marie praises while Cliffy mushes his pancake
around his highchair tray: “And the Rose Garden,
and Topiary stuff! Jeez! The grounds!”
“For divorce!”
Steaming Prophet of the Grill.
Labels: brats, chaos, divorce, Family, family breakfast, finance, kids, marriage, pancakes, wealthy family
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
Two Families
-My side: Order, Checklists, a Plan!
-Hers? and I wince asking.
-Last-minute clusterfuck with everybody screaming!
-What can you do when thrown in with them? Calm them somehow?
-Start screaming too!
-Is that why they like you?
-I believe so. I also can do a split! Observe!
-Jesus!
Labels: chaos, checklist, clusterfuck, contrasting families, Family, order, plan, screaming, split
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
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Loves and Marathons
Opal and Carrie
O
I just left the dankness of his living tomb.
C
What was that like?
O
Dying, flat and cold, not warmed-over. Icy!
C
Add him to the defunct list!
O
Have we alphabetized yet?
C
I had an Aaron.
O
First in your heart, also?
C
Hell of a body at any rate. Professional Athlete.
O
Marriage considered?
C
Yeah, but his wife wouldn't let him.
O
Leave us move, then, to my Allard. Dedicated cell
phone to Mother. She called constantly. During our
love and kisses once, she offered me love and kisses.
Turned, like, everything off in sex department.
C
Shall we go on?
O
Nah! Too boring! Let's do a crappy soap opera
marathon. Weed, beer, monster hoagies.
Farting slobs in the worst of it.
C
Like the guys! Except for the stink. Why are all the good
ones taken?
O
Bribed.
C
Thus not Men of Honor anyway?
O
Where YOU been? At any stupid rate, let’s order up
Pride and Price. Every episode, chaos. One time
a so-called actor said. “I think I really hate you, Carl.”
C
And the other said “YOU’RE Carl! I’m Maxey!”
O
Idiot actors and twisted loves! All directed by morons!
C
Like life itself?
O
Amen!
Labels: beer, chaos, girltalk, hoagies, soap opera, soap opera marathon, twisted love, weed
Thursday, May 01, 2014
Movements
-The New Incoherence just about swept most musicians out.
And now with Ragged Incoherence...?
-It all finished me, and the group.
-They...glue rags together before each performance!
-Clever enough, so they can flip around here and there and
show their little things.
-Rather prodigious in the case of Mickey-Mel-Mookie, my daughter's favorite. And each instrument, too, becomes a laugh. They pass them hand to hand. And in the performance we witnessed, all converged for a laser-slashed finale on
one drum-set, obliterating it in a frenzy.
-Yeah? Well there's still real music elsewhere!
-And you wish to represent it by teaching “Intro” at this obscure
junior college?
-An ambassador!
-Well, there are already PhDs in The Incoherences, and you just have the bachelor's. But you studied with eminent classical persons, and performed worldwide. At any rate, I'll get you before the committee. Don't be surprised if you’re bombarded with anagrams. DKM is Deaf Kraut Music, after Beethoven. MM is Metronome in Molasses--what they call Sinatra, Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald etc. JOM equals Jerking Off in Mirrors, or Jazz. HC means Hick Central, or Country. Many more coined relatively recently, but you'll be up for them, I'm sure.
-We always got warnings, but never thought sheer ignorance would
take over.
-You're one to help lead the counterrevolution. I'm done! With teaching, family, and committee work...and nerves permanently on edge with the traffic shrieks of Ragged Incoherence!
Labels: Beatles, chaos, Ella, incoherence, jazz, Music, musical revolution, Sinatra, style, taste
Friday, March 07, 2014
Vision Thing
The Company
-We lacked vision.
-That word again?
-Just putting out fires and keeping our heads above water and...
-...add your own cliche. Then send it up the flagpole!
-So they sent in a Visionary!
-Serious as a heat attack! And he, of course, proceeded to fuck
everything up completely!
-We finally got his ass fired! And now we’re putting out the
multitudinous fires HE ignited!
-Fifth time through same cycle for me. Time to retire.
-Why is the new thing always an old thing?
-Ask God.
-Why him? He’s always screwing us up with his own brand of vision.
-You’ll burn in hell!
-Oh? Excuse me! Thought that’s what this was.
Labels: CEO, chaos, Hell, putting out fires, reorganization, vision
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Washing an Umbrella
Good News
Iris the waitress could tell. "Good news, huh?"
Jepps acknowledged same, but begged off telling it.
He had forgotten.
Back to the messy efficiency to recheck the mail, from
whence it may have come. Bills.
Then the email, Yahoo and Google. No soap.
The one he seldom used with the Cable Company
refused to let him on. When he asked to change his
password, they informed him he needed to type the
twenty-eight digit number on the modem first.
Modern humor completely, since it consisted only
of twenty-eight digit numbers. A wraparound pop art
phase for commerce.
Jepps started losing his glow. It WAS good news,
though. He did remember that.
The next morning, Horge sat with him in the booth, due
to a trucker enveloping his usual end of counter seat.
“Then, you lost your good news?”
“It appears.”
Iris came with their orders, laughing and happy.
“She got it. Iris. You left it laying around and she
expropriated it.”
“Nonsense! It's exclusive to me...whatever it is.”
“Uh uh! Women convert things as part of their usual
expropriating process. Believe me. I've been married
three times.”
“I'll beg it back from her.”
“No way! They don’t give up things. But don't look so
discouraged...it's mostly this filthy weather anyway.
My umbrella smells like shit.”
“Then you should wash it.”
“You don't wash an umbrella! Shows your disordered thinking.”
Labels: absent minded, chaos, expropriation, losing, umbrella, women
Monday, April 22, 2013
Cycle 2050
-Well something must be done: I'm stepping
over starvation bodies in the streets
of this once-great nation.
-Nothing can be done. The Republicans filibuster
anything not directly helping the Rich.
-Then we must apply to The Rich to save us.
The time for pride is over!
-No use. They're strapped bribing the Republicans.
Labels: chaos, cycle, filibuster, Republican, rich, starvation
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Water
-They shut off the water!
-Just about in the entire world. Well, I warned years ago that
The Oligarchy gave up on oil and switched to water.
-But what’ll I do?
-Not a bad-looking TV. Get a kid to help you haul it out to the street.
Guys are selling water from pickups. Probably give you a case for it.
-But why did they turn off the water?
-To show they can. Then they’ll quadruple the rates
and there won’t be a peep.
-But you’re a government official and...
-That’s a laugh. What government? I go through the motions
for old time’s sake.
-It’s anarchy now!
-That’s another laugh. Ten times worse. Total chaos! Everybody getting
a chance to shoot his gun. And when bullets run out, you beat the crap
out of anyone weaker.
-But all this violent insanity can’t benefit anyone.
-The billionaires think it can...trillionaires some of them.
-But this is America!
-That’s the third laugh you gave me! You’re an old comedian!
-They shut off the water!
-Just about in the entire world. Well, I warned years ago that
The Oligarchy gave up on oil and switched to water.
-But what’ll I do?
-Not a bad-looking TV. Get a kid to help you haul it out to the street.
Guys are selling water from pickups. Probably give you a case for it.
-But why did they turn off the water?
-To show they can. Then they’ll quadruple the rates
and there won’t be a peep.
-But you’re a government official and...
-That’s a laugh. What government? I go through the motions
for old time’s sake.
-It’s anarchy now!
-That’s another laugh. Ten times worse. Total chaos! Everybody getting
a chance to shoot his gun. And when bullets run out, you beat the crap
out of anyone weaker.
-But all this violent insanity can’t benefit anyone.
-The billionaires think it can...trillionaires some of them.
-But this is America!
-That’s the third laugh you gave me! You’re an old comedian!
Labels: anarchy, chaos, oligarchy, water, water in future
