Posts for June 8, 2019 (page 6)

because we are sold in pairs

we hustled through this

commercialized land-field

together

then you slammed me

against the pavement

and popped me

cracked me

destroyed me

into paper bits

and gunpowder

and you sparked

the neighbor’s brats
are on my lawn again
they don’t care
how much damage they do

they scuff my sidewalk
tear up my grass
crash into my mailbox
throw their candy wrappers

they are always
singing and laughing

who do they think they are?

wait ’til they grow up a little
they will learn
they won’t smile so much

and where is the father?
i see the mom sometimes,
never him

i am the one who gives them water–
and cookies, too,
from time to time

i may get out of this Laz-E-Boy™
and go out there
and yell at them
again

but it does no good
they’ll be back tomorrow

they’ll be on my lawn
long after i’m six feet under
the lawn at Brush Creek Cemetery

if only they’d spare
the flowers,
instead of bending the stalks–
ripping them out–
only to leave
the blooms suffering 
on the sidewalk,
trampled under little feet
and tricycle wheels

my wife
planted those daylilies
three years ago
just before she died

they are all i have
left

I am always going home
Sometimes this involves driving
But more often it’s
curling my body into a parallel mountain range with yours
Licking a spoon clean while making dinner
and sighing into your chest

With beer glass in hand
I cry out, oh muse, oh muse,
where for art thou oh muse?
In a quiet voice I hear
I wait patiently inside of you.
Again I cry out,
oh muse, oh muse, what is my muse?
In that gentle quiet voice I hear
you exist only to love
that is all.
Aaahh, tonight I have found you
in the waning moon.

As a college student working a part-time job for Audio-Visual Services,
I served as a projectionist.
Showing up at a class, there would be a projector and a reel of film waiting for me.
Yes, a projector and a reel of film.
Can you guess the century?

Several times I showed the film documenting Leon Festinger’s experiments in “cognitive dissonance.”
I can’t think of anything that rhymes with “cognitive dissonance.”
Anyway, subjects were “tested” on ridiculously easy tasks.
Pegs in holes, stuff like that.
One group was paid considerably more than the other to participate.
The result?  Not what I expected.
The higher-paid subjects commented on how silly the experiment was.
The lower-paid subjects praised the experiment’s value and felt that they had contributed to a worthy cause.
What?  What?

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, two characters, “the duke and the dauphin,” scam local townspeople by charging money for low-quality theatrical performances.
In one case, the townspeople in attendance are so shamed by their gullibility that they get others to attend subsequent performances, claiming that they are not to be missed.
The other townspeople fall for it.
OK, I read the book when I was very young, so my memory is hazy.
But I played in the pit orchestra for Big River, and that was how the scene played out.
Book by Mark Twain, musical by Roger Miller, dang him.

Scam victims who then–out of embarrassment and denial–perpetuate the scam,
That wouldn’t happen today, would it?

I quit trying to relate to a ghost 

who died long before I came along 

I am finished holding on to something that did not want to be held 

You did not realize the damage you were capable of 

I did not realize the damage you were capable of 

until it was far too late 

I am done being the graveyard in which your insecurities go to die 

I am not the river that washes away your sins 

I am not the home you return to once the vacation ends 

You have no right to come back to me 

when I never wanted you to leave in the first place 

pinned to the bodice
of the muggiest of days
is a cloverleaf brooch
            if
when      how long

I’m afraid
of being happy
Because
What if it changes
And I have
to listen
To myself
Say 
I
told
you
so.

Sunday morning I join early risers
at the Church of the Epiphany,
light a candle, leave a petition.

A woman crosses the street,
rubber-soled, pocket book hanging
round her neck, head bent to the concrete.

An elderly couple, with the help
of canes, walks to the subway,
where they read to avoid stares.

At the park, they consider the games–
pickle ball, badminton, ping-pong–
and feed the sparrows.

Back home, I let myself go–
eat leftovers, change into my best pajamas,
spill coffee when I laugh.

  One might think a strong man whose
Temper, rage and fists always led,
Would lend himself to binges, booze,
Yet it was as if he would not let any agent
Assuage his anger whether alive or dead.  

His crops and garden fared better by far
Than animals, friends and kin. Strong
He was, tall able to beat the hardest task.
But cancer would ferret right from wrong .  

It worked to tame Hoppy’s broken soul.  
Forcing anger’s trigger to rest on hold.
Big C coiled and struck him all at once, quick
Kind does that, leaves its victim deadly sick.  

Neighbors helped wife and grief struck boys
Crop and harvest truck with hope and wishes
That something good would stop the beast
Tearing at a good soldier as the pain increased.  

You know the end, and soon after he went to ground
The house that had stood good stead for a hundred
Years or more, was emptied, left to rot. A wind bound
Twister drilled the logs like straw bits and dandelions.  

You can see the faint outline where it stood, or
Perhaps the mind’s eye just conjures it there.
The road goes on, people pass as before
Not aware the house is gone because of war.
 
The free bird flies and breezes furl the grass.
Time let the worst of hurts and grieving  pass.