Daily Archives for February 11, 2015

The Clock

My troubles all started 15 minutes ago
when the clocked ticked a stop and ran really slow.

All the people I loved who didn’t love me back
all seems now, rather matter of fact.
The luxurious items that I could not afford
all the cars that I drove that I did so adore.
But the gold and the jackets estate sales did claim
and the Porsche and the Lexus are all but a name.
And the plasma I watched from the living room wall
and the front load washer standing seven feet tall
are in someone else’s house or in someone else’s hall.
The trophy wife I landed with my TV and my car
Is reading life insurance papers at the local bar.
The estate in which I lived, with movie room and pool
was my kingdom here on Earth which I can no longer rule.
And as I float above my body and the surgeon tries his best
there is one last thing to you that I really must confess.
I’ve had it all wrong from the very, very start
for all these things I mention lie nowhere near the heart.
As they call the time of death I take a moment to reflect
and see my life, like my car, was a crumple of a wreck.
I made myself an island, accomplished well and spent
credit cards galore, and loved every cent.
But it’s people I have missed, that necessary part
more precious than the original, Italian works of art.
Some people take with them the heartache and the sorrows
from the loved ones and the kin who weep for all their morrows.
And dreary though it is this brokenness, a gift
we can carry with us here, far and wide across the rift.
But today no one weeps, no tears for me to keep
as I travel my last path through the far and wide and deep.
I didn’t see my time here as painful until now
I wish to set things straight, but cannot figure how.

So I say these words to you, embrace well others there
and for material things, do not give a care.
For at some point in time, which you will not know
the clock will tick a stop and run really slow.

The Behavioral Psychology of Woodpeckers

Pull_hair

We both have deadlines

he and me and

we’re not so different really

except he bangs his head against his desk

like a ravenous djinn gone mad inside

his emerald coated bottle of a cubicle

and he does this for three minutes

and then a small hole forms

just an eggshell patina break

and he uses his teeth to snag

some object in it…

Paper!

A wadded, rolled up, already stapled and collated

report for the boss

and I just stare at him and then

I stare at my monitor as he

pulls it ex nihilo from the mini-fissure

in his desk.
Everyone skips to lunch and

I’m alone and behind and

worried and

so I bang my head

like he did

really, really hard

but can’t make three minutes worth

and then I wake up on a nightly vacuumed carpet

and see a circle of eyes peering down

and feel crimson running from my forehead

and I think

just like a Robin

that a Woodpecker

is just a crazy bird.

Scientific Inertia

Mustache

Mr. Bachenstein was quite fine

walking home from work,

a light stroll until he suddenly
flew into the air and sped like a rocket

head first

into the bottom of a dangling piano

nine floors above.
And birds, well… they just had to

learn to eventually fly upside down

and build their nests on the underside of the branches.
And fish, well… they rode the largest

blue flying amoeba ever to the exosphere

where the oceans splashed against nothingness

and formed a blurry prismatic shell for those of us

clinging to lamp posts and

clustered, confused on ceilings.
And Remi and Ted’s Pinto

lifted off like at the end of Grease

but they weren’t singing,

just screaming for some long minutes

until, as they suffocated slowly,

they saw a tidal wave coming to swallow them whole.
And so with differentiation at work again

we’re all finding it hard to breath

and so if you find this note in a bottle years from now

know this: it was dropped by a scientist from the doorway

of a lab in Switzerland into the seas above

and we found the Higg’s boson

and we are sorry about the Gravity thing.
In our defense, it was an outlier, you know.

Will Power

I am craving a fudge bar

but I shouldn’t eat one.
So MANY Calories.
I should have a Popsicle,

and I stare at Lucille Ball

some more

driving away the craving

with bungling, Red Head antics

but a sudden commercial

makes me ravenous

and I wrestle myself

Inside

as I often do

and lose

and get up

and go to the laundry room

and open the floor freezer.
I’ve put the highest

Calories

under Megan

where they are much

harder to get

thinking

my laziness will

prevent my obesity

but I dig my arm

around under Megan

until out comes a fudge bar.
It sticks briefly to her

skin, and I pull it free

but she doesn’t make

a sound

because I told her not to.

She’s just an Embryo-shaped

cicle, all shivery.

There’s no head movement

when she looks out the corner

of her eye at me

and I see fear,

and I feel guilty

because I know she

is afraid of my

Lack of Will Power.

Uniform

the dead soldiers’ Uniforms are dusty

muddy and

shrapnel bitten,

chewed by the grenade

bayonet, puncture wounded

and dyed crimson, signed in the color of a setting sun

by an unwilling author.
bloated gray bellies

distend the carefully sewn cotton

they are camouflaged

but visible just the same

i snap the picture for posterity

and think of scratch-n-sniff ads

and methane putrefaction

and wonder if a mom or dad

will point at the picture in the paper

with prideful recognition like they did when

their son of three made the post for halloween.
the family will look upon a mouth sewn shut

eyes closed

body smooth and painted

and wrapped in his sunday’s best,

but I have seen the blender,

eyes wide with horror

mouth agape, twisted.

add soldiers, pulse for 20 seconds, cloths on, spread gently on the grass.
war is not a Three Piece Suit.