Tuesday, July 03, 2018
Single Mind
Dot and Clint build a marriage
respecting each other’s privacy.
Seldom speak. Oh, pass a message
along re changed dental appointment
and the like.
A “discussion” as promoted by media
docs? Absurd!
Their sex is quiet too, and grim.
There’s job to do there. Competently.
Oh well! Aren’t you supposed to walk
in someone’s moccasins a mile etc?
They wish you not to bother.
Your very thinking intrudes!
Don’t they have friends?
Not for long.
Family?
Too odd even for them!
Labels: eccentricity, Family, marriage, privacy, sex
Friday, May 18, 2018
"Through sepia!
I see them, hardly bizarre but really
only Ward and June Cleaver, Ozzie
and Harriet etc.
Everyone’s family odd! blah blah you say, and our friends.”
“Well, my one brother…!” I attempted to start. He all but shouted me down.
“But MINE TRIBE into seriously seriously insane direction. Pathological, criminal even.”
“Give me hint.”
“No, you must pay.”
“How much?”
“Dollar is fine. Symbolic. You’re never
actually giving it. It stays like this forever.”
(As a collector of foreign currency, I have
already put the dollar in a plastic case. )
And only if you’re very sure!”
“You’re acting! Academy Award!”
“No. You’ll never ever be the same.”
So, he told me. Whereupon, Cleo
and Mark arrived.
We went bowling, I think.
After not sleeping, I walk a few hundred feet to an area where redevelopment has repeatedly failed.
Grandiosely called “The Desert.”
Bury the dollar in its case.
Labels: eccentricity, Family, pathology, ritual, symbolism, weirdness
Friday, August 25, 2017
The Quartet
-Your wife forgot something,
so drove back downtown.
She says you can reach her
on her cell.
-Never turns it on.
-Oh?
-Just likes patting it in
her jeans. Reassuring.
-I...notice little disturbances,
uh, interruptions of light.
Rustles.
-Sidney Carton.
-Cat?
-Most surreptitious.
-And literary! Well it all sounds nice.
You, wife, cat in little Ractal.
-The town that even Ignominy forgot.
-And you call Ragtag, of course.
-Are you a prophet?
-Can be a part of the job.
-Well...which of the three are you taking along?
-We'll get to that.
-If I may make a suggestion? You should
have a substitute to plug right in.
-A good one, but, alas, I travel alone.
-But not on the return leg? At any rate, the balance can be restored here pretty quickly.
-Is that the most important thing? Balance?
-What else?
-I'll have Sidney come out so I can get a look.
-You must praise him! Otherwise he's impossible!
-Your wife is patting her phone. She's at the
bottom of Skinner Ravine. Nasty! But she
won't suffer. Sheriff Gathers will tell you that.
-Sad. I only have good things to say about
Death Valley.
-Her nickname, naturally. Will you mention that
in the funeral notice?
-Must. Many don't know her real name.
-The desert's an odd place.
-We embrace that.
-I can see that.
-And it, us.
-Sidney Carton! What a total and absolute sweetheart!
-Well done.
Labels: behavior, death, desert, eccentricity, place
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
