Lori R. Lopez's Blog: Poetic Reflections

Let’s be serious.  (A very stern look.)  Ha, fooled ya.  Probably scared you a tick or a tock if you’ll admit it.  You won’t?  Are you sure?  Are you absolutely certain?  Fine, be that way.  I can be that way too.  (Arms folded.)  These are serious times, calling for serious columns and serious verse.  But at this moment we will not be serious.  We will ignore the times, the clock, the hands of Fate, and declare that it is time for a mad tea break (like a coffee break but with tea).  A tepid water with lemon break in my case.  It might even be time for a new clock, as the joke goes.  I don’t get that joke.  My clock regularly strikes Thirteen.  What is the big deal?  It comes after Twelve.  Don’t give me that look . . . like I have a frog in my ear instead of my throat, or my hat is on backwards!  (Why must people always give me that look?)  You there, wipe that expression off your face.  Here’s a hanky.  I’ll wait.  Thanks.  Now we can get on with our discombobulagreement.  Thirteen follows Twelve.  Says so right there on my clock.  Just above Acme Humdinger Doohickeys.  They make the best timepieces, don’t they?  Anyway, this particular piece of time is pointing straight at a one and a three.  Don’t tell me you can’t see it.  Perhaps you need an eye exam.  Or a head exam.  I tend to flunk those.  Nevermind.  We’ll forget about that.  And the part about being serious.  You know I can’t for long.  It’s really a strain.  Quite exhausting.  I have to cover my mouth — with both hands — stifling the silly impulses, those outbursts of humor that burble and make my head bobble, then bubble forth out of a primal bottomless well in my pit of pitiless pitter-pats!  Or is it my armpits?  Aunt Laurel used to call me a pit when I was growing up.  I wonder what she meant by that.  A cherry pit?  A peach pit?  I’ll have to ask her.

Okay.  Moving along at the gong of Thirteen because I can, because it’s my clock and my party and I can laugh if I want to, so I am putting my foot down to insist . . . phew, that was tiring.  I need a breather.  An air break, I guess.  You go on without me.  I’ll be right behind, huffing and puffing and attempting not to blow houses down . . . counting little piggies on one hand, my blessings on the other . . .  Go ahead, read some poems.  I dare you!

Oh, I see that I’m still busy scribbling them.  I forgot.  As slow as I write, it could be a problem.  We might be here all day.  And night.  And month.  What month is it now?  I accidentally ate my calendar while making a sandwich.  I mistook it for lettuce.  That’s understandable.  They shouldn’t color the pages green.  Like dollars.  What were they thinking?  I’ve eaten all my money.  I should stop making sandwiches.  And sense.  Not that I’m making much cents.  I’m being nickeled and dimed by penny-pinchers.  Swell, now I’m just babbling.  Next I’ll be psycho-babbling and they’ll have to lock me up.  I don’t know how or why, but I seem to have gotten off to the wrong start on my left foot down a gopher-hole (not nearly as fun as a rabbit-hole), with the best of intentions gone awry like my crummiest-laid plans or something to that effect.  Which is a mouthful of hooey, if you ask me.  (Take my advice, don’t ask.)

Speaking of advice . . . pardon me for a minute, I need to scratch my head.  No, I do not have cooties.  I am rather perplexed at myself.  Has that ever happened to you?  I am beginning to question if there is any purpose to all of this.  Some internal, intrinsic, inherent (take your pick) rhyme or reason for going on and on about so little or nothing.  Is it necessary?  Maybe I ought to stick to the poems.  Or fictional prose.  Maybe I should do something else entirely!  It’s a good thing I don’t listen to the voices in my head or the suggestions in my Suggestion Box.  Where would I be then?  I’m a writer.  It’s tough to tear myself from words to be an artist too, let alone give it up.  Sorry, it cannot be done.  I haven’t tried since I know there isn’t any point in trying.  It’s part of my soul, my blood, my very essence . . . what makes me tick like clockwork.  A wind-up clock with thirteen hours, of course, and Jazz Hands.  A nice little beret or propeller beanie on top.  That’s me, and nobody can take it away from me, unless a villain should build a contrivance to suck the talent and imagination out of a person’s mind and bottle it or lock it in a box or condense it inside of a nutshell.  That would be fairly heinous and diabolical.  It wouldn’t be nice either.  Villains are such meanies!

Don’t misunderstand, I am a fan of villains when they are cool like Frankenstein’s Monster or Dracula.  Those are classic villains of book and reel, eternally awesome.  They don’t make em like that anymore.  These days monster creators use modern devices and instant glue that can cement your fingers together if you’re not careful.  (Trust me on that.)  It isn’t the same.  It’s different.  And different can be its own kettle of corn or coolishness.  I should know.  I like to differ.  In fact, I beg to differ whenever possible.

I miss the ages when you could be weird without being told you have to be like everyone else — have to conform, fit in, blend.  I like being offbeat.  I enjoy those incredulous stares.  The ogles of disbelief.  I like being peculiar, as you probably know by this point, which isn’t a point at all.  I am aiming for your fondest bemused jigsaw-puzzlement; your noggin-shakingest jaw-slackery; your mockingbird hootin-toots of utter bafflence.  Which aren’t words at all if you’re a snit-picker, but I take much poetic license in my writing, even when I am not writing poetry.  You would know this by now if you were paying attention.  I hope you have been, however challenging it may be to follow my absurd drivel and dislocated chains of thought in these rambled preambles to the latest bursts of my worst verse.  (I never write my best verse.  That would be futile, for I could never top it and would plummet into a state of despair.  I try to avoid that.)

The world seems filled with baddities and saddities these days.  We need to focus upon the oddities of life, I feel.  The harmless inanities and insanities of existence.  Such things can put a smile on my face, for I am a bit of a clown at heart.  I was a class clown as a child in my day and occasionally wear make-up as an adult in a circus-clown greasepaint manner.  A “Baby Jane” Bette Davis fashion.  (That’s a reference to a classic movie from my childhood, in case you were unaware, and I developed most of my fashion sense from it.  That and the Addams Family, I suppose.  Lurch was quite a dresser!  Then there was The Bride from the second Frankenstein film.  What a trendsetter!  Before my time, but styles have a way of coming back, do they not?  Like bouncing balls and yo-yos.  Boomerangs too.  Duck!)

Oh dear.  I was actually trying to be serious there a second and flopped miserably.  You are really better off reading the little tags inside of garments, terms and conditions, warning labels, pop-ups on your computer than these horrible introductions to my awfullest poems.  The poems themselves are bad enough.  If only I could stop myself from blurting out this nonsense.  Go on, get it over with.  Wade through the verse if you must.  I shall bury my head in a bucket of embarrassment.

Voilá!  Je presente . . .

(Pardon my French.  Though I don’t know why they say that, it’s really very lovely.  And pardon me as I disentangle myself from the removed veil of a botched flourish.)

    Thirteen-O-Clock!

Oh dratted tempest of capricious time,

Why must you addle me with your chime?

Is there no fiddlestick lever to yank

That will stifle the echoing croon of your crank?

Are the cuckoos and loons of the night

Conversing at lung-top, in whimsical flight

With cacophonous blather, the lather of hens

Clucking or fussing about nows and thens?

Is it possible you have inner springs to unwind,

A clashing gear-gnashing of teeth to grind?

Could you suffer mechanical indigestion,

With clockworks upset or spontaneous congestion?

My ears are inclined to dread your automation,

The methodic precision of hypnotic vexation

Ordinarily tuned out, causing attention to lapse;

A curse, but not worse than the mysterious taps

That have lulled me to relax in their precision,

While unregulated by any natural division.

Paranormally-charged, like a persistent drip,

The ticking grows louder beyond the connip

Of treading over staid prosaic bounds . . .

Past the threshold of conventional wisdom’s grounds

To a wilderness zone of twilight unknown,

With an alarm clock’s tension-jangling tone!

’Twixt the steady metronomic marks of time —

Your synchronized motorized clicks that rhyme —

Sound the off-beats of gadgets, clandestine tocks;

A furtive assemblage of chains and sprocks

To unwind at the blindest unkindest hour,

Ignored by most, yet imbued with grave power.

Occultish, arcane, the feyest of enchantings

Appear at the stroke of Thirteen-O-Clock rantings!

I can lie awake tossing or burn midnight oil

In a tomblike reverie of brood and toil,

Certain to be disturbed by your latest clamor

As I struggle to focus upon fanciful grammar.

Years had I abided by the rules of the Twelve

And its limits of minutes that archaically shelve

An overtime abundance of thoughts that won’t fit,

The creative endeavorings not ready to quit,

Crammed into brief instants expired too soon,

Desperate for chances that weren’t opportune,

Scrambling to meet deadlines and winding up short,

My nerves in a bind, down to the last resort.

Running out of time was a daily affliction;

There weren’t enough hours in my life of constriction,

Of collecting hourglasses that didn’t add up

And begging for more with a half-full buttercup.

I have languished exhaustive, immersed in self-pity

For the measure of stitches that aren’t very pretty,

Yet bind me together if I’m falling apart

Every time a clock rings or announces the start

Of the macabre thirteenth hour I know to exist —

At the height of Nocturne, in the center of a twist

Where shadows all meet in the eye of the storm.

As nightshade lengthens, I tremble to stay warm;

A hollow head vibrates with the patter of mouseplay

That incessantly trails the chronologic display

Of watches and clocks, every manner of keeper;

Temporarily jarred from the realm of the sleeper.

Eyes bleary, I smother a yawn with my hand

In the hope of not swallowing a mouthful of sand.

When the portal of eeriness creaks slow and wide,

Still-life on my desk will trek side by side,

Jerking and stiffly parading around

Like old-fashioned toys, grotesque and key-wound.

Conflicted, I shiver at the eerie cavort

Of figures and creatures in teeming rip-snort.

An army of mayhem, they’ve started to bite!

The seconds drag on; I’m contorted with fright.

Thirteen is unlucky!  My silence is broken

In mirror shards, yet the words are unspoken.

A battle of wills; a grim balance of need as I plead:

“Do these eldritch minutes help or impede?

Has my sanity fled?  Have my mental parts rusted?

Could a clock on a tower be any more trusted?

We are guided by the tolls of huge clanging bells,

By whistles and sirens, machinery knells.

What are they telling us?  Where do they lead?

Are we pawns in a game of steeplechase greed?

Who set all these clocks?  Who fired the first pistol?

Is there really a forever behind the crystal?”

Time will not always tell, despite what they say.

I’m afraid the thirteenth hour is here to stay.

    Shortcomings

I have a few things wrong with me.

For example, I can be disorganized

as a carnival of fools

with my Alice watch unwound

or running too little too late

in a harebrained scheme

of impatient haste.

I might be mercurial as a polluted fish;

an alley cat on a tin roof in the middle

of August;

a bear on a trampoline

jumping for joy like a magic jellybean

containing a worm.

I will forget to remember things

that I wanted to forget

but can’t remember to

because I forgot to write it down.

The note might slip through

my fingers anyway and waft

in the breeze — forcing me to

scamper and chase it only to miss

by a wisp every time it lands.

I’m not all there and can neglect to pay

the piper, the fiddler, or attention.

Though I do try to listen to

the important stuff,

it can be tough to be in

the moment every minute;

a lot of the time I skip off into some

twaddlesome lanterloo of my own invention,

when not huddled in a corner

of the past

or fretting about tomorrow

in yesterday’s time zone.

My wits are whetted by absurd strings

of hyperbolic guddle and fuddlement.

I tend to grate the edge of reason

so sharp with my teeth while asleep

it can cut my hair, trim my fingernails

as I’m barely hanging on by them,

collect in strips and stripes

like wood shavings or cheese.

I’ve knocked on wood so hard

that it gave me splinters.

Words can fail when my tongue

is tied in a pretty bow

I cannot unfurl because

my finger got tangled up and trapped

when the ribbon was trussed

like a high-class hoity-toity pretzel

at the Prince’s ball.

And my stomach is frequently

knotted into a balloon menagerie,

pinched and creased like an origami zoo.

I am sure you know the feeling.

There’s a hole in my pocket

that leaves a trail of shortcomings

behind me wherever I go.

I could mend it with

a needle and thread but I might

jab myself in the leg

and leave a path of blooddrops

spilled over flaws and foibles,

the defects and deficiencies

that accumulate like bric-a-brac

or knickknacks, gimcracks,

spare parts, loose ends . . .

Oh look, there’s another!

If you should pick up a stray weakness,

it’s probably my fault.

Just drop it in the Lost And Found

where I can claim it

once my absence of mind

will allow.

    Time

If I pick at it like a thread

I fear it may all unravel

I can’t keep track of every second

For they get away from me much too

Easily.  I once looked at it as

An expanse, optimistic in my youth

Now as the candle burns lower

I find myself guarding it

More precious and valuable somehow

And try harder not to waste it

Without losing who I am

The senses of humor and perspective

That cling like static electricity

It takes a lot of time to become

Somebody — at least it used to

A rounded individual, someone great

Or at least good

Soon they will have a pill for that

Or surgery; a download for what used to

Take a lifetime.  At any rate

I think I missed a turn

Along the way.  It’s too late

To backtrack, and I am not one

To retrace my footsteps

I keep going on, right or wrong

It might not be the destination

I set out for.  Perhaps I settled

On a fate instead of waiting for

A destiny.  This life thing can be tricky

My view of it has grown shorter

Like my vision; patience too

And I have realized how uncertain

Plans are anyway as I ponder my

Tomorrows, scheduling minutes

In advance that are merely

Borrowed time and wishes, nothing

Certain.  Except that what I am now

Is the best that I can be at the moment

Not my very best; that will always be

Over the rainbow

Through the looking-glass

On the horizon

Just a little bit farther

A few strides away

Almost at the tips of my fingers

Slightly out of reach

But there, right there

So close I can nearly

See it if I squint

Hear its cadence, faint as a breeze

Wavering, an illusion

That flickers and drums

A more or less steady

Marching song.  Like the rain

A keyboard pounded by inspiration

A throbbing tempo on a dance floor

A rescue chopper’s rhythmic thumps

The flutter you hear in a sonogram

The pulse of everything

That ever was.

    Friday The Thirteenth

It is said

the planets may veer on such bleak dates, as fates

shy from the portents of stellar magistrates,

misled by a moldering graveyard, an alley’s invite —

for mayhem and mischief out of the light . . .

Where we might

fall prey to the murderous vibes of cursing crows,

harbingers of doom hunched in deathly rows

upon rooftops, gable peaks, high wires and boughs;

ebon soldiers of Fortune with piercing trumpet vows.

No simple cornmongers,

these are agents for the master of dark destiny —

dressed in black tie and tails, pallbearers of misery,

abiding the call to usher each star-crossed loser

drawn from a hat by the lottery’s drab chooser.

Look and learn

as flickering candlewicks turn to seething tongues,

the stark cries of birds emit from a billion lungs

neath the glitteral peers of livid eye-whites

forming shadow-puppeteer connect-the-dot frights.

Far above

is an umbrella of winks, where a gaudy umbral dome

frowns down at bottom-dwellers skulking the gloam.

We are bound by its firmament, by cosmic constraints

to shuffle on schedule, bear our daily complaints.

En-masse

we anticipate Friday’s advent, ecstatic for release

from the drudgery and toil, the machinery’s grease.

But not every fifth day of the week is so blithe;

if it falls on Thirteen, beware the grim scythe!

Dread will spread —

with frigid dismay, thick as butter on bread

over what could betide us, what perils lurk ahead —

conveyed like toys on a circuitous assembly vine

through the factory of Life, to the end of the line.

Bitter cold,

funeral-procession hearses with low-rider shocks

steered by drivers in moth-balled tuxedo frocks

congest the lanes, a broad belt of rush-hour panic.

Breaking the night, bats and crows hurtle manic.

The Thirteenth

will forebode disastrous consequences untold;

a period of tribulations when good luck is on hold,

suspended for an interval of twenty-four hours

that you may survive if you have special powers!

Should you feel

unlucky, expectations will be abysmal —

hope in short supply, the odds acutely dismal.

Air might crackle with arcane mysteries nigh

and your hair stand out as you wave bye-bye . . .

A mere number,

thirteen possesses no strength, I believe.

Such a day cannot harm, fight or aggrieve.

It is fluid, we know; composed of chance, thin air.

An evanescent flow to embrace and share.

I regard it

an occasion for celebration, the opposite of

a terribly off-day.  I think it’s okay to fall in love,

start a journey, pet a black cat, take a ride.

Do not dig a hole and cower inside.

We mustn’t fear

the grimalkin or grimoire for spells cast;

must not blame the culture of an iconoclast,

any more than a page’s ink for a worst-selling book.

And yet, The Thirteenth we had best not overlook!

    Current

Months unfold — a deck carelessly shuffled,

spilling across table or floor — a flat road

paved by slippery laminated cobblestones

like Tarot cards that purport to tell

the future.  But the numbered boxes

are empty, void of meaning, waiting to

be filled . . . blanks in the run-on sentence

Time writes.

Now the pen is out of ink, the roll of paper

sodden as it glides down a river of lost hopes

toward a rushing cataract of dreams.

The waterfall’s roar thunders in our ears

with a mighty flood of thoughts,

yet we cannot slow or dam its tenuous

stream of days and years, we can only strive

to float . . .

And not sink; to keep our heads above

the tides of Change that sometimes

pour like white frothing rapids

and other times subside to trickle —

a shallow layer clear as glass,

diluted and glossy, short of substance.

I am swept on my back, never a very

capable swimmer.

The current is all we can touch, not

yesterdays and tomorrows.  They are

just ghosts or figments, ethereal vapors

elusive to our reach, beyond our

present grasp.  Maybe one day

their images will be more defined than

memories; captured, concrete as fantasies

on paper.

    the truth about nothing

I have questions for the cosmos,

like why if I put lipstick on

my lips are not sealed

and how a couch potato can use

the remote control when everybody knows

potatoes have no limbs.

(Except Mister and Missus Potato Head,

but they’re not exactly real, are they?)

Where do June Bugs go in July?

How did the man get in the Moon

before there were astronauts and

ships to carry them there?

Why are we floating in Space

so indecisive and awkward —

simultaneously revolving

and following an orbit —

instead of going somewhere else

or spinning out of control?

Why doesn’t Gravity hiccup every

now and then, or get tired

and take a vacation?

And why isn’t String Theory

full of knots like my hair?

These are thought-provoking wonders,

wouldn’t you agree?

I am certain you must, else your head

has to be missing most of its screws

and could fall off at any second.

There, you see?

Better grab it or it might gather moss;

you could get mud in your eye

or pebbles in your ears that would

rattle around the inside of your skull

and then where would you be?

With a headful of rocks instead of

marbles!

A lot like a fish that doesn’t swim.

I can’t quite figure those fish out.

They come in a box and are orange

not gold, like the bowls of fish

people keep on tables for decoration,

only these are dry and crunchy

and have no scales unless you count

their dehydrated flecks of cheesy powder.

Thinking of them drives me crackers

so I am asking . . .

how does a loser stand a chance

when the wheat and the chaff

are separated, the corn and husk sorted

into organized chaos —

Frankensteined by mad scientists

recreating seeds that were already perfect?

Why does Man tinker with things that are

better left alone?

It is much the same as to arrange

orderly rows of mismatched socks.

It doesn’t make sense, like chickens with

stripes instead of pox; roosters with brushes

instead of combs.  And why are they

running around crossing streets, or squawking

about the sky falling?  I want answers!

Do you think it’s fair that failures can’t win

because to err is human?

I seem to have more questions

than when I began this soliloquy of ponderings.

If an eyeball itches on a lonesome eve,

can you hear the sound of one eye blinking?

Will you heed the flail of a thousand lashes

against the blade of Chance

cutting down the middle?

What does that even mean?

You see, I have lost my own marbles

among the blur of queries spilling

from my brainspout.

I am driven to hysterics by the flutter

of a cuckoo in my noggin

that must have flown in one ear

then out the other, unless it remains trapped

like a pigeon in a warehouse or store.

I can’t tell.  Sometimes my days

are literally upside down,

sleeping at Dawn’s break, rising at Dusk.

Oh no, do I belong in a coffin?

Should I travel by hearse?

Time has no measure over me, nor dominion.

I am a lost soul who lives by a clock

of thirteen hours not twelve, and navigates

by polkadots rather than the stars.

I move in slow-motion

while days have sped up,

which is a frustrating condition.

I am intrigued by a cattail twitch stirred

by the brittle wind as I ask the heavens,

will there ever be the wag of a dog’s tail

on a wetland’s mourning?

Do not feed the night though its belly growls,

for in the wiles of weeds and marshes

hide the songs of thrushes midst

the rustles of rushes

and the termagant reeds!

As you can see, the lines of this poem

have snapped under the strain of too much

senseless pollen getting up people’s noses

and making them go kachoo

as I have clearly gone haywire

in the aftermath of a total brainsneeze.

There is no truth about nothing

in the end;

there is but the dribble and drip

of faucet-noses,

the harmless broods of stranger breeds,

and the drool of aimless thoughtlessness

gone mad from the silly mud

that molds character,

the gumption and pink bubblegum

pasting the universe together.

    Yin Or Yang?

This world is an unsympathetic place

Where the weak can be crushed

Whether by physical or emotional baggage

Then weeded out by Evolution.  There is no

Room for being too sensitive or trusting

There is no sympathy for the broken

They are sacrificed to the volcano of

Progress that flows with molten avarice

To consume the present and pave it over

Erecting cold modern structures as empty

Of life as a city of ghosts, outdated and

Abandoned, or never lived in.

The world is a marvel of tender beauty

Of majesty and immeasurable riches

That have nothing to do with gold or silver

Coins or cash.  There are true wonders

Of Nature, and guileless amazing creatures

Who live without burdens and boundaries

Or they once did.  There are depths unlimited

In their souls, as in the heights of

Human spirit; the glow of warmth and grace

Kindness, determination, love and peace

That is possible if we stand united and believe

In good, however bad the times may be.

Our world is a duality, a Yin and Yang circle

Of dark versus light where moderation is

Key; balance is everything, like a juggler

Riding a unibike tossing crystal balls

That could shatter when dropped

And the future be sacrificed forever each time

The ball doesn’t bounce — analogous of

War and Fate.  We are the flingers

The catchers charged with maintenance

Equilibrium, stability, a steady hand

If a generation fails, the next must

Scurry to recover that which is lost.

    Candlelight

For Soledad Medrano

“It isn’t pretty.”

Three words she cast to the sea of night,

A message in a bottle

For whomever should find it

Washed on a shore, perhaps bobbing

In the waves of the celestial tide,

Swept by a current of sorrow and tears

Both shed and unshed.

Some tears are invisible, you know.

They burn the skin like acid

From the inside where none can see

The scars.  I saw these words,

Brief and vague, excruciating and poignant,

Far flung to the eclectic electric crests

Of social media; the faceless odyssey

Of cyberspace . . . a bumpy ocean of endless

Distraction I grapple, unsuccessfully,

To avoid while writing or drawing.

It isn’t pretty.

Such a cryptic thought, shared

With the gravity of a quiet life-or-death struggle,

The kind we can pass on a street

And not glimpse the severity,

Filtered through kaleidoscopic senses,

Or the lenses of expired rose-colored spectacles

Needing a new prescription.

Yet it caused me to wonder, to pause

And study it for illumination.

Busy, giving the statement a quick glance,

I would stay tuned for an explanation, a clue

To its riddle.  Like so many casual comments

Tossed out to random observers

At any given moment across a vast divide,

I couldn’t dwell on the meaning.

Only later, in another day or two

Would I learn how significant the remark

And recall that it struck me as rather odd

And terse; I had wanted more, something

To clarify.  But I did not know her well enough;

A joke, a witticism would have felt

Out of place, the wrong tone.

I so rarely glimpsed what she shared

And couldn’t think of the proper response,

Uncertain what it referred to, that brooding

Note . . .  A concerned reply from a virtual

Stranger would not have changed her mind,

I suspect.  She needed to talk to someone.

Belated realization.  Tragic retrospection.

I with my own introverted demons,

Time-challenged and pressured by

Continuous deadlines, agreed in silence:

It isn’t pretty; a lot of things aren’t.

But some are, and perhaps she needed to

Hear this.  I waited for what else she might

Add.  It was the last I would glimpse that night,

And the next.

Three simple words, how they touched me

With a twinge of mystery, a spark of curiosity.

And after that an indelible grief

In hindsight, for a moment of rue

I will always carry.

You can’t get a moment back

Once it is gone.

Had I reached out to ask, to inquire

What she meant . . . would the outcome

Be different?  We are left to feel such things,

To wonder in the aftermath

What we could have done.

Now I mourn

And treasure those terms:

It isn’t pretty.

Written of darkness and agony

One dim October eve.

I was there and said nothing,

Preoccupied with my own issues.

I must live with that too.

I will remember it, an eternal regret.

A solitary vigil.

A chance wasted to connect

And be a true friend.

Farewell, Soledad.  I did not say

Hello or goodbye at the time.

I just watched as I will

From the shadows of my own

Private share of past anguishes.

Now I know precisely what

You were telling us.

You seemed very nice, a lovely soul —

Who unfortunately harbored disastrous

Torments, inconsolable wounds.

A courageous author, brave enough to

Speak out about the unspeakable.

I among others will greatly miss your

Presence; your beautiful eyes and smile.

You were a light in the dark,

And your candle burns on.

    Paris

My beret is removed in sympathy

for terror in the City Of Light;

for Parisians, our fallen sisters and brothers

across the seas.  As French hats were lowered

when New York wept on Nine Eleven.

The world sobs together

for any town or neighborhood

targeted by hate,

ravaged with a violent yet curable disease —

the cold disregard for human life.

I hang my head in sadness,

grieving at the torches of disputes

on foreign lands or at home . . .

the bloodshed, turbulence, separation

dulling the shine of hearts joined

in mutual respect.

Atrocities occur too often,

wherever there are weapons aimed;

when groups with power cannot agree.

Cherished places are desecrated,

the calm of streets shattered by

bombs or bullets; by cowards and the brave,

who may resemble two sides of a coin

tossed in the air to decide who is right

and who is wrong.  History turns to myth

when the facts are slanted or obscured.

It is cities like Paris and New York

that unite us all, that belong

to the globe, a greater sphere,

though we may not have visited;

we feel we know them so well

and dream of seeing their sights,

of strolling their lanes like lovers.

No extremes of heartless murder,

massacre, brutality

can mar the vision we embrace

or steal the spirit of a people joined

in hope and peace.

    Plan C

From day to day

opinions can change,

ideas may shift

and firm or razor edges

can soften, reform.

Plans should be written

in pencil not ink,

certainly not carved in stone,

or there will be much crossing out

and chipping, smoothing,

then revising more

as we seek to refine our views

until perfected.

But even then, like artists

we must accept that nothing ever is.

What we scribble, etch, engrave

is a changing blueprint that may

end up being what we do when

all else fails . . .

either a complete surprise

or an alternate route —

Plan C,

after the other alternate (Plan B)

was scrubbed.  Erasing is neater.

Less time-consuming too.

I seem to have less and less of that,

and my plans will change accordingly.

It’s all interconnected, a network

of weights and balances,

like the universe.

I had a lot of plans once upon a time . . .

History is what it was,

a progression of events

from conquests to heroics,

depending on who recorded or witnessed

the happenstances;

the comedies or tragedies —

so often defined by violence,

by somebody taking away

someone else’s rights.

Now and then it might seem

The Good Guys won,

but there were usually more than

two sides,

an untold story.

For every win there had to be losses,

not always deserved or intended.

There were twisted fates,

unforeseen consequences,

stray bullets, random bombings,

grudges, mistakes, bystanders,

and innocents fell.

Wars seldom go according to plan,

while acts of terror are faceless plots

directed at ideals, beliefs, appearances.

Or the schemes of individuals

with axes to grind

and access to weapons.

There has been too much

destruction and hatred.

We can’t go back and fix that

because a Time Machine could create

a bigger mess, upset the scales

and tip things more out of whack

than they were.

We can only heal the present

and do our best for future generations

that history will not repeat.

I wish they would stop hiding

the truths

we should be learning from

to correct errors in advance

instead of multiplying them.

We have computers now

to help with the math.

Forget about Plan C;

it probably stands for Crazy.

By then it’s generally kind of late

to be repaired.

Or maybe the situation isn’t hopeless.

Maybe it needs another look.

And then sometimes,

just when Fate convinces me

that my luck is rotten as a black peach,

the worst or best serendipity reverses

my point of view entirely,

turning things around

from bad to good or not as terrible —

showing me the brighter side,

a flower growing on a battlefield,

a tree that survived

a forest fire — withstood the blaze

green and resilient among the charred

stumps and trunks of a bitter scourge.

One shining moment,

an uplifting reminder that all isn’t lost

if we find a shred of dignity or hope,

something to believe — telling us

not to give up.  Sometimes that is all

there is, all we can take away

and grasp.  Cling to this, a reassurance,

the thought that luck can change.

It might not be the end, the impossible

dream or limit of endurance.

It may just be a point of departure,

low tide before the current rises,

an ebb before the flow.

Or maybe, part of a grander design:

a cosmic sense of justice and order.

Karma, kismet, destiny.

We all share the fate of the world;

we are all one people under the sun

and stars.  There is no room for

ulterior motives, skewed priorities.

Life, innocence, peace . . .

those matter.

Not killing, not war, not death.

Stick to Plan A

for All Aboard,

All-Purpose,

One Plan Fits All,

the All For One And One For All

Approach . . .

just be sure to think

Ahead.

Plan B is for Bullies, Barbarians.

It’s Bonkers, Belligerent, Buffoonish.

Plan C?  That spells

Calamity!  Catastrophe!  Casualties!

Or Cuckoo and Cockamamie.

Do the alphabet.

It’s as basic as A-B-C.

    Clockfolk

The people in the clock are listening.

I know they’re in there.  I can hear them

between the ticks and cuckoos,

as sure as I can reach up and touch

that round silver moon just sitting

in the sky watching

the clockfolk wonder about me

like everyone else — except in their case,

I wonder about them just as much.

They’re tinkering inside, messing with

the way things are . . . the gears and

levers.  People can never leave stuff alone,

they have to change how things run,

raise the bar, alter the system,

upgrade rules, wreck or improve

the status quo.

Here today, gone tomorrow!

But clocks have worked pretty much

the same for ages,

other than the kind that aren’t actual

timepieces.  There are no gears and cogs.

No springs.  Who knows what they are —

alien technology or modern junk.

I blame the people in the clock.

Why couldn’t they be satisfied?

As soon as I like something,

it will disappear, replaced in a flash,

tossed on the scrapheap of the obsolete —

burying yesterday’s new thing.

    Loonacy

I can be a loon though I haven’t a feather.

I may carry an umbrella in all types of weather.

I might climb a scaffold without a paintbrush

and take my time while in a slight rush.

Don’t expect to be gotten or understood.

I refuse to be analyzed (as if you could)

like a bug under glass; I will still be duller

when vividly magnified in Technicolor.

How can the unfamiliar be appreciated?

The different may be snubbed, by some even hated.

My ways are mysterious as an unread book,

a head that has never been nodded or shook.

I seldom do the things you’re supposed to do.

Must be missing those parts, or some of the glue

that keeps it together, holds everything in place

like gravity and harmony.  I don’t have a poker face.

In fact, I’m surprised to be recognized at all.

My features can look bland, unspecific as a ball

that isn’t defined by a particular sport . . .

just plain and anonymous.  That is my sort.

Yet my heart is as light as an unstrung balloon;

I am deliriously me in the shimmer of the Moon —

when a clock strikes Thirteen and Time goes still

as a Will-O-The-Wisp mocking a Whippoorwill.

Not everything has to make perfect sense . . .

I am as blissfully ignorant as I am dense

about the state of the art of an artichoke heart.

Oops, I tugged a loose thread and am coming apart!

    The Monster’s Lament

What if I told you space and time isn’t real?

That it’s all an illusion, a fabric to hide

the ugly mechanical parts, the guts and bolts

of the truth . . . that the universe you know

is a dream of smoke and mirrors,

a dash of cosmic dust?

Not the dust of stars and planets,

but a darkness so complete it is brighter

than a sun; a force that encompasses

nothing and everything at once,

upon a metabolic mindfield where matter

is infinite and pure, defying distance

and limits.

Would you regard me a misguided thinker,

somber, bleaker than a forest of ice-trees

if I lost my faith in the ability to bend?

You must have disdained the obvious,

an elaborate frostwork of ornately sculpted

one-of-a-kind patterns within the chilling

haunted structure, clear and blinding in

the day, white and gray at night.  But none of it

is genuine, permanent, shaped from rock;

it melts exposed to glare, vulnerable to seasons.

I, a starveling for affection, crouch in the shade

of my convictions; an outcast freak born of graves

and corpses.

Can you see into my soul?  Would you meet

my eyes if I gave you the chance?  I have found

that one can blaze a path by stepping softly

without creating much sound or disturbance.

As I creep round the edges of civilization . . .

do you notice me, or are you blind to my

lurking out of shyness, my glimpses and gazes?

I have watched you and wonder if you could

look beyond the deformities, my eccentric

nature without growing alarmed, summoning

the club-and-torch brigade, the pitchfork

militia.  It is so easy to be unaccepted if you

stick out.

Would you view me as a threat because

my heart stopped beating, my flesh was cold?

Do you find it monstrous to live again through

a few borrowed parts?  Maybe it is Science

you should fear, having made me what I am.

That is what defies logic and principles,

crosses barriers and prudence, shirking morals

for the sake of experiment.  Perhaps you are

correct that I should not exist as I am,

for I am a work of artless forgery, a sham.

There is no place for such an aberration, whether

in society or the wilderness.  I must seek a cure,

a refuge.

The victim of Mankind, can I forgive you for

my suffering and then for spurning me,

your invention?  Where shall I fit in, this

creature of distasteful features and virtueless

traits but outside your cities and provinces?

I have no home, no purpose.  I must find a place

at the end of the earth, neglecting to mark

a trail of footprints as evidence, not leaving

a single fingernail shred behind.  And the time

will pass slower, every detail intricately rendered

by anxiety, but it will pass before you know as

you try to forget your mistake, groping within to

expunge me.

I may endure despite all efforts, a reminder of the

dreamworld once crafted to gawp at imperfections.

The walls of belief and race and culture erected

in order to have drama, to disrupt the glorious

mundane monotony of everything as it should be,

of a peace so tranquil that it drowns you

like an undisturbed lake.  I rose from the base

of that pool, from its muddy depths,

and fascinated you with my garish visage,

then frightened you — more human, more

sentient than your kind would tolerate

in a beast.  Therefore, I shall not vex you

any further.

I desired to walk beside you, engage in equal

pursuits, but I am aware now I could never be the

same.  That was my folly, for we were not created

equal.  What is disparate cannot be transformed

and labeled authentic.  Science must have limits,

must be wielded with due conscience and ethics.

I am the antithesis of humanity and life!

How vain and warped to conceive that one

such as I could serve as an acceptable substitute

for a man.  I am sufficiently intelligent by your

standards to recognize what I am and am not . . .

I am death.  I am deceit.  I am an ogre.

Nothing more.

~ An elegy alluding to Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN

I was planning to call this “Blank”.  I had even typed it up at the top in preparation, but at the last minute I decided to change the theme, so I guess you readers have dodged a bullet.  One that creates much noise and smoke while signifying nothing.  Just a typical exercise in poetic reflecting, or columnity, or something to that effect.  You know what I mean.  Hopefully.  If not, don’t worry.  You are not alone.  There are many out there who have no idea what I mean most of the time; possibly all of the time.  Besides the ones who have never heard of me, let alone met me or read me, which is virtually indistinguishable.  I am really much more me when I am read than when I am not.

With that said, or mumbled (I think I was mumbling or muttering it, though I cannot be certain since it was all in my head) . . . I see we are off to another fine and confusing start.  How nifty!  I do so love to obfuscate.  Or is it discombobulate?  I can never keep straight whether I am doing one or the other.  Suffice it to say that I am being vague and rather muddled.  We’ll leave it at that.  It may not stay left, or right for that matter.  It may wander off and stay something else entirely.  It’s so unpredictable.  We’ll just have to see what it ends up being, I suppose.  Whatever it is.  To tell you the truth, I’ve already forgotten.  Let me grab something and stick it here.  Hold on . . . (rummaging) . . . got it!

Oh, sorry, it scurried away.

Wait, I’ve got this.  Or that.  (Digging deeper.)  Hmm.  I’ll just put some duct tape over the empty spot.  There, good as . . . well, the gaping hole is gone.  Let’s move on, shall we?  I think that would be best, rather than dwelling on the obvious patch in the middle of the page.  Pretend it isn’t there.

Didn’t your mother teach you it’s impolite to stare?  Oh come on, I bet she mentioned it once or twice.  Of course she did.  She must have.  You’re in denial, that’s what.  You should listen to your mother.  That’s the problem with this world.  People stop listening to their moms, and pretty soon it’s a jumbled heap of unpicked-up havoc and chaos.  Haven’t you heard that mothers know best?  It’s true.  Ask anyone.  Ask me, I’m a mother.

Ignore it, I said!

Okay, I see we’ve become a little obsessed with the duct tape.  Just because it has silly yellow ducks on it is no excuse.  Really, you’re behaving rather juvenile.  We were trying to have a nice one-sided conversation in which I do the talking and you do the listening, but now you aren’t even paying attention.  I might as well be playing Tiddly Winks, or Badminton.  I could be.  I was playing them the other day.  It was very nostalgic.  I used to play them a long time ago, a long long time, and I’ve taken them up again.  I was a bit rusty, but it’s one of those things you never forget, like riding a bike or twiddling your thumbs.  You can forget how to swim (trust me), but you don’t forget Tiddly Winks.  Or Badminton, also known as Batmitton at night since you have to avoid swatting bats.

I’m teaching my sons everything I know about the games.  Noél and Rafael were soccer players and Mexican folklore dancers growing up.  This is all new to them.  After mastering the art of skipping, which Rafael had managed to skip until he was an adult, I thought it was time they learned something useful . . . something serious and more competitive.  As a mother I need to prepare them for the world we live in.  It’s never too late.  We had overlooked these vital skills.  What manner of mother would I be if I failed to share my experience and valuable knowledge with my kids?  Not that I claim to be great at being a mother.  I tend to worry about it, actually.  Hoping I’ve been a positive example and influence.

Whether you’re a mother or not, I’m sure you can relate.  We all have moms, unless we’re especially odd.  Even then, even if we hatched from an eggshell or sprang from a can that stuff pops out of when you open the lid, we must have started this crazy thing called life the same.  It’s fairly universal, the whole mother thing.  Whatever our language, beliefs, customs, species.  Just think how incredible it is that we’ve had one, or somebody like a mom.  Every child needs that.  Just as, I believe, every woman needs to experience a maternal bond with someone else, or another creature, a furbaby, a kid with feathers or scales.  We make connections of the heart, and the roles of mother and child are essential, whatever side we may be on.  Then again, we are all children of the earth.  We should, every one of us, feel connected — with each other as well as with Nature.

Phew, that was a heavy thought.  My head feels lighter now.  Oh no, here’s an afterthought:  The roles of parent and child are often interchangeable over time.  There, my mind feels much clearer.  I fear I went off on a tangent, making statements instead of the usual cotton-candy fluff.  I do my best to skate around such unfortunate bother, the starched-socks bee-in-the-bonnet nonridiculous nonsense that can creep in and spoil a rambling essay that says so little and means a lot less.  Now and then I may lapse into something which nearly resembles a point (if your pencil hasn’t been sharpened for a while).  You’ll have to forgive the occasional outburst.  It must be a personality dysfunction.  I am kind of quirky.  And kooky.

Now that I have explained myself thoroughly, let’s talk about mothers.  I don’t know why that popped into my head, but it’s as good a topic as any to go on about in a roundabout sort of way.  I was first typing “a roundabout wort of say”, which is fairly different.  I’ll save that for next time, perhaps.  It’s a subject that requires adequate time to rattle off with as little attention as possible.  Yes, I will have to shelve it for future discussion and hope it doesn’t roll from the shelf to be lost under a table or sofa, or collect dust in a corner.  My mind’s attic does tend to get dusty.  I wonder where all of that dust comes from?  Is it outer-space dust?  Is it the soot of candles burned at both ends or the ashes of burned bridges?  Might it be those chips off old blocks, the splinters or slivers pulled out of fingers, the sediment of eroded rocks and cliffs and beaches?  Maybe it’s spilt fairydust, sleep or hourglass sand that has trickled out of place.  Could it be the Moon’s dried tears, the hardness of clouds, the fog turned to powder?  Stray particles escaped from that Hadran Collider contraption?  Old brittle grease from the gears that keep Time slipping away and everything else going like clockwork?

Speaking of which, we’ve run out of time to discuss mothers.  I shall have to write poems missing a theme after all.  The slate is blank, folks.  Please disregard the title.  I’ll send a little painter with a bucket to redo it in due time, whenever that might be.  Perhaps when I’ve paid my dues.  Wait, I thought I already did.  Is Life trying to double-deal me extra charges?  That’s some nerve!  Hold on, I must go and argue with those quacks in the Bills Department.  In the meantime, here are a few poems about whatever they’re about to entertain you.  Like elevator music.  And the recorded jingles they play when you’re left holding the phone — not to be confused with holding the bag . . .

    mothers

A mixed bag, you never know what

You might get, reaching into the pot

Or the hat to draw a mother.  A hugger

Or a slugger; a nagger, gagger, lagger,

Washragger; baker or shaker; comforter,

Quilter, or a blanket excuse for screaming.

You could be mothered, smothered,

Tothered, sister and brothered . . .

Will she dress you up or dress you down?

Will she understand or reprimand you,

Teach you or preach to you?  Will she

Reach out from the darkness of her past,

Lead you into the sunlight of a golden path

Or new day, encourage you to cross rainbows

And let smiles keep you dry, take your hand

When you are lost yet leave you the space

To find yourself?  Can she make you laugh

When you feel like crying — make everything

Fine again after the world clobbered you?

Did she do her best to love you and provide

As much as she could of the essentials;

Give you life without giving too much

Or taking too much in return?  Don’t fret,

The odds are in your favor of landing

A good one.  Chances are, if you have

Known a mother in your life or ever felt

A mother’s touch, a mother’s protection,

Her absolute affection, then you are rich

Beyond compare and there is nothing that

Will ever compare with that.  Everyone

Has a mother.  Good, bad, or indifferent.

But if nothing else, know that you are

A child of the universe and you are blessed

With the ability to dream your dreams,

Sing your songs, dance your dances,

Write your wrongs, most of all to live.

And eventually to change your life if you

Wish, if you so desire.  Because a mother

Granted you the chance, carried you and

Gave you a birthday.  Whether you have

Eaten your cake or not; whether it was

Upside down or weighed a pound . . .

Know that you were loved at least that much,

For that is love.  That is sacrifice.

It is the greatest gift you will ever receive.

Have you given her your thanks, forgiven her

For any of the mistakes she was bound to make

If she was human?  Even if she was an alien,

They’re probably imperfect too.  So give her

A break, give her a hug . . . in your arms or

In your heart.  It is not too late.  It is never

Too late.

    Mama

The tolls of years were too evident

The toils of a life could press and chisel

From so many sides until what remained

Was sculpted to a woman

Once a carefree child, a budding girl

Then a comely maiden whose high degree

Of fairness did not guarantee being treated

The same, for the world could be so mean

But the woman was stronger for it

Smarter and wary; ever more cautious

Of changes and artifice, the double faces

On strangers who lied with straight tongues

Tired of their smooth talk, crooked morals

Weary of a twisted route and false paths

Even at times of friends who could be

Twin-edged or masked like Zorro

She spoke softer, more reluctant and shy

Than when she was fresh to the world

Of landslides and woes.  Time must whittle

Away that charm-school polish and naiveté

Disappointment erodes the eagerness and

Confidence of youth, leaves a trail littered by

Rubble and lost hopes, tears melted to glass

Fragments of dreams lay scattered in her wake

The paragon of womanhood, she became

Entangled by the ties of deception, abandoned

In her prime; the only good man she had ever

Known was married to The Law

Handsome and courageous yet a coward

Unable to commit himself for a family, for her

The fraud claimed to love her too much; a fool

He would spare her from bereavement

She lost him anyway, finding the door

Walking through it such a difficult thing

She kept the secret when she left him

That was burning in her womb:  an egg

As a single mother she raised the child

Without support; fingers pointed, scornful

Looks, belittling words cast in her direction

But she held her head up and endured

The girl was her light, the only reason for

Her smiles.  Calling her Mama; a small thing

Can make all the difference, change a dismal

Day into an array of sparkling moments

Or rip open a soul to let everything of worth leak

This woman would know the horror and pain

The grief and heartbreak at last when her child

Was hit by a stray bullet one bright innocent morn

Her sorrow could not be measured like rainfall

It was devastating.  She felt her life had been

Extinguished, as if the bullet sailed through her too

For an eternity she wandered in a haze of misery

Until she chanced upon an egg without a nest

And carried it home to hatch.  The bird emerged

Fuzzy and pink, gray and brown, kind of purple

Then grew to a brilliant hue of crimson

Red was her daughter’s favorite color

The bird reminded her of the girl, the way

His black eyes peered at her, thinking she was

Mama; how he hopped and pranced with joy

The softness of his feathers rubbing her cheek

The notes of his cheerful tweets and whistles . . .

An offbeat pair, an oddball family, they had

Each other.  Both were saved from being lost.

    Mother Nature, Mother Earth

At the apple’s core, the center of all things,

The nucleus of organic and mineral elements,

There is one voice that speaks loudest,

Bearing the authority of a vast web linking

The cosmos, connecting each strand, each heart;

Flowing like a river of silk in every direction.

Her emotions are renowned, widely feared

By those who lack a depth of perception,

Who fail to acknowledge that her spirit

Lies within us as well as around us.  She is

Our anatomy, our character, our composition

And constitution.  We are in tune, we are one:

Liquid and solid and gas combined,

Part of the ether, part of the past and future

And everything between.  The ground below

Our feet, the atmosphere we inhale in a gasp

Of pleasure or exhale to speak out and sing.

She is as stunning when she wakes as when

She goes to sleep.  A pin-up queen, the ideal

Of breathtaking charm; the duchess of

Delicate balance and proportion; the epitome

Of dignified, feminine, matronly, maidenlike

Grace; of grit and determination, glorious

Unconquerable attitude.  As close to perfection

As you can get.  She is beauty and inspiration,

Wisdom and purity, life and death and birth.

She is the current that generates creative thought.

The spark that ignites artistic brushstrokes.

The charge that leaps from braincell to braincell

Conducting moods and actions like an orchestra.

The impetus for change.  The melody of hope.

The harmony of peace.  The motivation to be

Bold, to be brave, to be different.  She is

The stardust of dreams, the fabric of love,

The essence of imagination.  She is the mother

Of invention and Nature, which have been known

To clash like siblings; she is who we come home to

After drifting a sea of constellations or swimming

Against moontides.  She may be riled by

Random circumstance; watch out for her

Tempestuous personality.  When reacting to

Contempt, neglect, the ravaging of her gifts,

Beware a woman scorned.  Her wrath is

Tremendous, and there is nowhere to run

From her unladylike behavior.  Angered,

She will hurl lightning with a cacophony of

thunder as if the heavens were crashing down.

She will pour a flood of tears; inflict a wave

Of anger, anguish, provoked emotions.

Try to understand, underneath the drama

There may be a wound unhealed, scars from

A history of disrespect or lack of care.

She is first a lady, like any mom, and requires

Courtesy.  Like the female of a species,

Her strength and perseverance deserve

A shining regard, a reflection of her love,

Though she may linger in the background

Unnoticed, forgotten, less flashy and

Attention-seeking.  A nurturing force,

She furnishes a bounty of thankless support,

Asking so little of her children while

Imparting a diversity of unrivaled treasures,

Shelter and nourishment.  It should be a crime,

A mortal sin to not appreciate her —

To not protect Mother Nature, Mother Earth.

    Mummy

Once I had a mother

Who was not like any other

She was a lot like yours, I’m sure

But yours was not a lot like her

My mummy was rather odd

As if emerged from a creepy pod

Or a moldy old sarcophagus

Raveled in linen straps like a truss

Then she produced a kid like me

As out of the ordinary as can be

Possessing attributes uncommon

Wearing one long rag like a cup of ramen

The same as you in certain ways

Yet sorting the gnarliest of Bad Hair Days

Every strand in a perplexing knot

Which vexes and flusters me a lot

But isn’t why I seem abnormal

It’s that I’m never quite conformal

I use strange words that don’t exist

And like to give my life a twist

As if it were all a sinister plot

In fact, I’m not so sure it’s not

We were born alike, I guess

Unless you crawled from a gothic mess

Where you were being put together

A jigsaw puzzle of flesh and weather

Sparked to life by nuts and bolts

The limp target of electric jolts

It wouldn’t matter in the least

If you were made of ginger and yeast

Concocted by a spell, a voodoo curse

Spat out by a cat or something worse

As long as you don’t pull my threads

Unwind my bindings, mock my dreads

We can play here all day and night

My mummy’s tomb is sealed up tight

She likes to take the lengthiest nap

We won’t disturb her if we clap

Her ears fell off countless years ago

She’s bandaged so it doesn’t show

I think she’s the prettiest mummy ever

Rigorous too, rather ghoulish and clever

Except while playing possum or passed out

Dead to the world as a drunken lout

Silent and brittle within a box of stone

Or stiffly chiding to let her alone!

At times I’m cradled in her cold embrace

A little mumby, wrapped toe to face

Rocked by shriveled arms and breast

My head against a vacant chest

It is then I sense a special flutter

Like wings inside thicker than butter

Forever could I sleep in her gaunt hug

Cozy and still, never feeling more snug

A mummy’s love is a sacred treasure

Enduring beyond all earthly measure

It is there I am safe at last to slumber

And nary a care may dare encumber

Until her withered appendages break

From too many games of Paddycake

And a swaddled babe would sorely tumble

To the museum floor then crack and crumble

I will lie at her feet in strewn decay

To be swept, repaired, and made okay

My owies glued, the bandages restored

And my mummy laid flat as an ironing board

To rest in one piece with me at her side

But I always slip out, then skip off and hide.

    With Respect

These days a mother might be scoffed at

For staying home, as Feminism battles to

Gain recognition, as women fight for equality.

It’s unfortunate that this is necessary

In a world where mothers are so important

And should be revered, considered valuable;

Where ladies have demonstrated themselves

To be as smart and wise as any man, as

Talented and skilled, as strong in so many

Ways.  We have nothing left to prove.

Yet it’s sad that men born of women could

Still put females down and treat them

With disdain or even violence.  A shame

That humanity has not even reached the

Level of intelligence and civilization

Where no culture will consider women

Objects, possessions, property.  Where

No person will be enslaved, no girl forced

To wed, no worker paid less for being

Branded an inferior gender.  Why is

The modern world so unfair to women?

It is as inexplicable and absurd as bias

Over the color of one’s skin.  Until we

Judge everyone by their individual merits

And deeds rather than superficial traits,

We cannot call ourselves a civilized society.

Men are not the only persecutors; women

Need to stop pressuring all women to be

This or that, to be champions of whatever

They now view as feminine.  I am for

Balance, for a middle ground between

Extremes.  I think the world needs more

Gentle men and gentle women.  Let us

Remember, ladies and gents, to be kind,

To be decent, and to treat others with

Respect — just like your mother taught you.

    even monsters have moms

I

I have heard it whispered

along the edges of the zones

where nobody is foolish enough

to enter, afraid of what prowls

the interior.  I’ve heard a lot of things:

idle talk, truth or wisdom, advice

for staying alive.  Words are like rain.

You know you can’t rely on the drops

to be clean, to keep falling.  They just start

and stop when they please.  Ghost rain,

it comes and goes.  That’s all there is

in these parts.  The great storms of the past

are gone.  They say the monsters guard

lakes underground, secret pools in the

desert, tarns sheltered by mountains.

There are many rumors and legends

about the creatures, driven by hope

and desperation; by greed, humanity’s

bane.  We battle them to stay alive.

It keeps us from fighting each other,

makes us feel civilized.  We might be

reduced to mere savages — packs of

marauding beasts, without actual beasts

to set us apart from them . . . establish

who, correction, what we are not.

They set a standard of behavior,

Not that everyone is polite, considerate.

We are all just dealing on our terms

with the collapse of society, the demise

of anything good or sane.

II

A repeated wisp of gossip flashed in

my skull like a beacon.  The catalyst for

this adventure:  I wondered if it was

a fact the things could have mothers.

Such a wild notion sounded quite

incredible, fantastic, yet I knew

from studies of history that most life

originated from a womb of some sort.

It’s my belief there is a cosmic mother

for everything, a maternal source.

I carry a sense of this inside,

on a deeper level, and there the idea

didn’t seem far-fetched or impossible,

struggle as my brain did to grasp

that these hideous beings of nightmare

were young and vulnerable at any point.

What is real does not necessarily

have to be reasonable.  Only tenable.

After most of the animals disappeared,

monsters came down from the hills,

out of the wastelands — dreadful,

so nasty and harsh-tempered.  Men were

still organized; governments hadn’t failed,

been overthrown, the concept abandoned.

With the monsters came pernicious wars

that halted internal conflicts between

human beings, who must now bond

and band together against their

childhood fears, these wretched ogres

out of a distorted mind’s imaginings.

III

They are winning — thrashing us with

sly unpredictable attacks, untraceable —

striking anyone, any age, in devilish hits.

The methods vary; no certainties exist.

A single constant, that they are brutal.

Utterly vicious; terrifyingly cruel.

My hands tremble as I scrawl this.

I wanted to be a writer when there

were presses, practically a lifetime ago.

I scribble thoughts on scraps found

in abandoned houses, with ink or paint,

dirt mixed with spit or sweat, blood

from an arm if I must.  Anything.

I feel compelled to record the horrors

taking place, to serve as witness in case

we disappear.  We cannot last . . .

They allow no chance for us to rest

or rebuild, to prepare, as if the earth

has simply opened up and spills them

forth in retaliation, out of self-defense,

an endless legion from Hell.  I did not

need to seek them, crossing into Badlands,

the infernal hinter regions they inhabit.

I must know, must see with my own eyes;

as my mother said, curious to a fault.

Are they born or shaped with vengeful

nonchalance . . . spewed out of a molten

mud frenzy?  They come to feed and toy

with us.  At first my kind had hunted them

for water; we cower from their raids.

IV

Resistance seems an exercise in futility.

The will to survive is frail, splintered by

brain-numbing assaults.  We are human

after all, subject to emotions and faultlines.

Anger fades to acceptance, to inevitability,

the embrace of fate, a doomed mentality.

We are a lost species, perishing like others,

soon to be extinct.  My days are numbered

by the odds as well as years.  I have little left

to relinquish.  The sacrifice is purely selfish.

I need to glimpse them at their root, their core.

It won’t be long . . .  Steps crunch black soil

that is firm yet fragile.  Courage flares, a torch

blazing with interest, fascination, kindled

from a meager wick, the wavering flame

of a candle.  This will be my glory, my last

hurrah!  Fingers do not shake as I pause

to pen a final statement, a belated insight:

Knowledge is life; love is water,

to be sipped and savored; truth is

everything and nothing, for it cannot

be held in your hand, only your heart.

I will carry it to my grave, but in the end

have an empty fist clutching air,

grabbing the wind as I topple and die.

All I wish at present is to endure

long enough to reach my destination —

to have the satisfaction of a small

yet profound victory.  Coarse snarls!

I duck behind a ridge, pulse throbbing.

The frightful cretins have no mercy.

V

Brawny, bold, they stalk these barrens

to protect what the creatures claimed.

I do not begrudge them terrain or water;

they can have it, these diverse masters

of the planet, like dinosaurs before us;

apex predators.  Hail the current kings,

it is their turn to reign.  I hope they’ll be

kinder, not treat the world as we have

despite our intelligence.  We brought this

on ourselves, a new age of violence,

unleashing a dominant species to replace

corrupt rulers.  Could it be that we created

these monsters somehow?  Playing God.

What stupid malignant lords we were.

It saddens me, for some of us did not

deserve this awful conclusion to the

human chapter.  It is the sweetness, the loss

of innocence I mourn once the beasts

are distant from my position.  Recovering,

resuming the journey, I scout discreetly

then hear a chorus of howls as if baying at

the Moon, but the sky is pale not dimmed.

Sunlight still gleams, and through its radiance

I can view a circle of ogres prancing, parading

gruffly in a festive tenor.  Apparently a custom!

Orbs round with astonishment, I stare between

two rocks, then gasp in wonder at a crying infant

nestled by the arms of one that squats within

the ring of celebrators — each unique and ugly.

Here it is; I cannot believe my fortune!

VI

There has been a birth, an addition to the tribe

of abominations.  However crude and vulgar,

the fiends are capable of sentiment, compassion,

not mindless rampages without a trace of

cunning or concern.  More exceptional;

more depraved, barbaric and revolting than

I could have conceived.  A chill travels my veins.

Cold fog penetrates my soul, the brume of

terror seeping into my bones, crystallizing

the marrow to bits of ice like a shattered window.

I cannot believe my eyes, no, they must be lying!

How could these killers — these heinous unholy

slashers of men, women, and children — have

families of their own?  Then I recall the crimes

of mankind, the slaying of lambs and calves,

baby seals, jovial dolphins, whales and elephants,

and each other . . .  There has been no lack of

wars and slaughter by human beings during

the ample generations of our existence.

My guard is lowered.  Abruptly I am moved

to uncontrollable sobs, gut-wrenching tears.

The wails betray my presence.  Monstrous brutes

detect my location.  Abruptly I am in the midst

of a new circle.  The mother saunters near,

bringing her baby to join the throng.

Trollish beasts salivate like I will be their

banquet, the feast of demons.  My gaze is locked

on a child.  All babies are cute if you squint.

This one is beautiful.  And I realize in a burst

of madness:  You can indeed love your enemy.

Time, time, time.  I think it’s time.  Yes, that’s what it is.  The next subject for a poetic reflection.  No, no, no.  Scratch that.  Well, it is high time for a new column.  I mean, here it is the sixth year of writing them (having passed the fifth anniversary ten months ago).  It is nearly the seventh year, in fact, and I’m just getting around to it?  I would say this is long overdue.  The clock has been sprung, and the pendulum has flown off the handle with the cuckoo bird.  It’s a lot like that time-changing nonsense where we are instructed to set our clocks forward or backward to lose or gain an hour.  An entire sixty minutes!  It just happened again.  This month.  Right now, the very day I am getting around to my next column.  I lost an hour.  No wonder I feel confused.  And it’s not as if there are too many or any to spare . . .

I have a serious problem with there not being enough hours in the day.  I would join a group for it, but I am not that good with groups.

Now I will probably obsess over losing an hour.  I should start a petition to end this madness, before they swipe any more of the time I have left.  I’m not getting any younger!  But if I started a petition I doubt that I could finish a column this month, which is more important.  Next month it will be a full year since the last two.

Wow, I have been busy.  With all sorts of busyness.  Such as skipping months, along with skipping to the loo, skipping rope . . .  Nonetheless, I am back.  You can pinch me, or yourself.  It isn’t a dream.  My apologies in case you are among the few who might have missed these rambled sojourns into the dark and light side of verse.  There is usually a good deal of contrast, as well as general absurdity.  An unstable mixture of extremes, like a science experiment gone wrong.  Or a witch’s cauldron, where who knows what was thrown in and what could crawl out.  Yes, that pretty much describes it.

What have I been doing?  Why do you ask?  What have you been doing?  I’ve been writing stories and poems . . . for anthologies, magazines, my latest horror collection.  Oh, and I released the second volume of my poetry series last year, The Queen Of Hats.  For Twenty Fifteen (which is the present, in case you’re reading this from the future) I plan to wrap up Volume Three, Blood On The Moon.  It’s in progress.  It still needs a bunch of additional poems, and more of my peculiar illustrations . . . but hey, the cover’s done!  That’s something!  And its thirteen chapters are half complete since they begin with previous columns.  I hope to wrap it up this year, in spite of the missing hour.

Oh sure, they’ll give an hour back in the Fall.  By then I’ll be way behind with everything as a result of losing one now, so nice try!

I was also busy cramming columns into the fourth volume of the series, which still needs a couple after this one.  It’s all very exciting.  To me, anyway.

I have been more off than usual in keeping on track.  Sporadic as they may be the past two years, I do hope to be more consistent with these poetic prattles.  And I hope you will bear with my erratic tendencies.  It is best not to force any form of artistic endeavor, or it can become a labor of labor rather than a labor of the heart and soul.  I never want it to become just “work” for me.  I prefer it to be inspired.  So I beg your indulgence as well as your patience.  And your attention span.  I do not necessarily require your understanding, since I dabble in nonsense as much as sense. 

Harumph.  The above has nothing to do with the current theme, which is —

Wait, I just realized this very column is a milestone.  Let us bang a drum, crash a cymbal, toot a horn.  Are you ready for the big announcement?  Are you holding your breath with anticipation?  Stop that right now!  I don’t like to be rushed.

Here it is.  Drumroll, please.  Monkey . . . somebody wind up the monkey!  No, not the cymbal monkey, the drum monkey.  Oops, the drum rolled away.  Oh well.  Enough monkey business.

Here it is, again . . .

Ahem.

This is my fiftieth column.

(Insert eerie music.  No, a fanfare.  Hmm, perhaps an ice-cream-truck or calliope tune?  Yes, that would be odd.  Maestro?  Where did the maestro go?  Nevermind.  Forget the music.  I’ll just hum a bit, off key.  Or not.  My throat’s kind of scratchy.  You’ll have to imagine the humming because one cannot really itch a scratchy throat.)

What’s that?  “Nevermind” isn’t a word?  It is if I say it, and I just said it.  I say it all the time.  Most of the time.  I say it, I will have you know, whenever I say it!

What was I saying?  Oh, fifty!  That’s big, isn’t it?  What do you mean it’s only half of a hundred?  I can count.  I have fingers and toes.  It’s still an event, worth celebrating.  Who invited that wet sock?  And that peanut gallery?  The wet blanket did?  And who invited the wet blanket?

Nevermind.  (See?)  Maybe I was cold.  Or too dry.  The point of all this is that it’s time for a celebration.  Something special.  It’s an occasion, which only happens occasionally.  Or just once in this particular instance.  Send in the clowns!  Let there be cake!  A nice chocolate vegan cake.  And balloons!  It calls for ducks too.  I love how they quack.  Not that geese are anything to sneeze at.  Or mongooses.  Mongeese.  Unless you’re allergic to that sort of thing.

WARNING:  The following three paragraphs are off-topic remarks.

In the midst of not writing this preamble, writing a prior preamble that wound up unfinished, two cohorts and I stopped at the San Diego Central Library to pick up a medal from my first Local Author Exhibit in Twenty Fourteen.  Browsing at the gift shop, I found a button that said READ and another saying BEST-SELLER! so I got them, although I cannot in honesty wear a Best-Seller lapel label as of yet.  They didn’t have one for the lapel level I am at, more of an UN-Best-Seller; possibly a Worst-Seller.  I’ve saved the button on my desk as inspiration.  I shall literally keep hoping for the BEST.  When you write out of love, for the sake of art — and because your head would burst from ideas if you didn’t — whether you are a Best-Seller, a Better-Seller, a So-So Seller, or a Least-Seller like me seems irrelevant.  What matters is that you are read, and therefore I can proudly wear the one that says READ, for it can also imply that I am Read.  Thank you for that.

On the same day, my sons and I stopped to see Godzilla at a theater — sitting in the front row like I used to as a kid when I would go to matinees alone and get lost in the stories on the screen.  (Between reading countless library books.)  Godzilla harkens to Sunday matinees at home when the original Japanese films were shown on the tube, attended with my brother and mother, a cherished piece of nostalgia.  These moments are a quintessential part of who I am as a creative spirit.  And the big green monstersaurus has long been a favorite, so I cried at the end of the new Godzilla.  Monsters are wonderful.

Visiting hat shops made it a perfect day, because hats are another facet of who I am and have been since I can remember.  While she sat through the Godzilla movies, my mother did not comprehend my monster and hat passions.  She took toys and hats away that people gave me if she felt they weren’t appropriate for a girl.  I stubbornly developed my own style in wardrobe as much as in writing or art.  And I have plenty of cool toys!

Okay then, back to the matter and the column at hand.  What shall we talk about now?  I’m not even sure I still have an audience after the last column (eleven months ago) with the antiquated Shakespearebabble.  There have been loyal readers who weathered the thick and the thin times, whether I made up my own words or digressed from the subject (not to mention any subject whatsoever) into the nothingness of sheer jabber.  I marvel over this more than any comic-book hero or villain, if you get my drift.  It simply astonishes me.  What were we talking about again?  Or better still, what weren’t we talking about that we should be?

Hat shops, Godzilla, Central Library . . . ah, it must be books!  Of course.  They are very close to my heart as an author, poet, illustrator, and reader-slash-bookworm.  Okay, I don’t actually eat them, but I do relish gobbling a good tale.  I have lapsed as a reader, unfortunately, since I spend most of my time doing the other stuff.  Even in my sleep, which is very disconcerting when I awake to find that I didn’t actually get any of it down.  I guess I need to learn how to sleep-write.  And sleep-edit.  Maybe sleep-read!

I miss reading books.  Paradoxically, I am surrounded by them.  Many are reference tomes, primarily word books.  I love words.  And I do read those in snippets.  Books often have words, whether a lot or a little.  Some have more pictures than words.  But if each picture is worth a thousand words, then I suppose they do have a fairly good amount of indirect language.  The word books I am referring to, if you will pardon the pun, although it was entirely intentional, are very special for they contain a large number of rare words.  Too many folks these days only like the commonest of terms.  I adore the strangest and most peculiar.

I really went off on some deep-end diving-board tangents here.  I’ve been saving the babble too long.  Oh dear, look at the time.  And the calendar!  It’s already Spring!  There was a Supermoon and a Solar Eclipse on the Equinox.  Then it was the International Day Of Happiness, and World Poetry Day!  It appears there are any number of reasons to celebrate this month, including that tradition about wearing green.  And the Fifteenth, the Ides Of March, was my mother’s eightieth birthday.  She’s been gone fifteen years but is not forgotten.  It is truly an exceptional month.  The perfect one to publish my fiftieth column.

Speaking of which, you may have noticed up there at the top of this ridiculousness that I typed “Horror Limericks”.  There is an explanation.  I promised a friend I would write some limericks, as that is the main form of poetry she likes.  And, believe it or not, I have not written any limericks since beginning my poetic reflections.  You know, these columns.  I could have written some as a child.  That was ages ago.  Many ages.  Some very Dark Ages.  Perhaps you’ve heard of them.

I can be quite nonsensical, so it amazes me that I had not yet turned my poet’s wit to the topic of Limericks.  Great absurd limericks have been penned, though not by me.  This is a tragic oversight, and I am grateful to a friend for bringing them up.  Then I thought:  I should do some Horror Limericks!  I’ve never heard of those.  I’ve done Horror Haiku, which I had not heard of either until I did some.  It was rather popular.  I will, of course, do some nonsense limericks as well.  How could I not?  I am nothing if not absurd.  I may even throw in some anti-limericks.

Confession:  They will probably primarily be anti-limericks.

I may not be the best limericker, but I will try my best whatever that may be.

Without further ado, here are some limericks for Vix.

(See what I did there?  Clever, eh?  Wink, wink.)

Okay, this might not be what she meant.  It is, however, what I would write.  And so I did.

Egad, where did March go?  It has slipped by (thanks to that missing hour).  Soon it will be April Fool’s and I will have to say I was just kidding . . . . .

    Horror Limericks

They are frightful, exciteful, often inane.

While they could make you laugh or plain go insane,

They would rather you scream

For they’re all a bad dream.

Horror Limericks are like smoking a chain.

    Birds Cheeping

What’s with those birds singing outside while I’m sleeping?

Have they lost their little minds?  Why so much cheeping?

It’s freaking me out!  My grip is slipping . . .

Don’t they ever have problems?  I’m flipping . . .

Too late, they’ve done it, I’m up!  Back to grim reaping.

    Feeding Fault

On the eve of a lunar crescent roll’s somersault,

A pepperish pair crept the cleaver edge of a fault.

Baring a maw that would gape rather wide,

Guilt gulped the salsa and his blushing bride . . .

The sweet unseasoned lady could have used more salt.

    Mad Jack

There once lived a mad Jack who liked to chop

He hacked with a vengeance and couldn’t stop

Till he cut down a town built upon stilts

And the furious folk, clad in vests and plaid kilts

Drew their hatchets and each gave the crazy a lop.

    Treachery

Treachery tiptoes in the threadbarest socks

With the soft careful stealth of thieves picking locks

And the gentlest touch

Betraying so much

That a leopard would not even miss his spots.

    Bedtime Story

A few monsters living under a bed

Disagreed on the story about to be read

So they crawled out to fight

About which one was right

The poor fellow above is now dead.

    Nasty Crassty

There was a nasty crassty from Kersplucket

Who collected bad vibes in a rainbucket

So crummy was he

That he made ogres flee

And gave goosebumps to ghosts who couldn’t duck it.

    The Grungeon

There once was a devil-hearted grungeon

Whose appetite was born in a dungeon

He enjoyed a good codger

Especially named Roger

Eaten with a pitchfork while lungin’.

    Big Bly

Big Bly was a monster with a despicable curse

Who did not know which option might be worse

To be extremely grotesque

Or chained to a desk

So instead he lives under a bright yellow hearse.

    Berserk

(to be read from either end)

Oh dear, I fear I have gone utterly berserk!

The trouble is, it seems like such a lot of work

What a terrible crying shame

And I have no-one else to blame

I do dislike when people think I’m a jerk

I keep losing my mind, which can be so hard to find

It’s like I’m stuck in a revolving door of some kind

Or trying to go forward in reverse

I keep misplacing my universe

I am really out of whack, off track, in a turned-around bind!

    Sinister Eels

Sinister eels may lurk in the shallows

Of the puddles that line these stark avenues

As you walk in the dark

On the whim of a lark

So beware when the dropped rain begins to ooze.

    Bucktooth Henry

Bucktooth Henry was a terrible tyrant

So awful he could mortify a Fire Ant

Until he choked on a stick of gum

And the red-faced end of him did come

They would bury Bucktooth near a hydrant.

    Slumber

Nothing is more satisfying than a nap

But death is too long, like a bear-tooth trap

Sleep can be a waste of valuable time

Shutting my lids feels akin to a crime

I ask that you give me a most vigorous slap.

Out of every night comes a chance to dream

Or the possibility of a nerve-wrenching scream

We may be helpless to choose

Whether we win or we lose

For life is the opposite of a plot or a scheme.

In slumber we are captive to the mind’s egresses

And the unplanned randomness of inner stresses

Provoking these oddest of wanders

Contrarily opposed to daily ponders

We dream the worst or best that our brain confesses.

The soul is bared when we lie undefended

Vulnerable and still, or thrashing suspended

In a state of fantasy

Where minds roam free

And hearts take leaps like dolphins ascended.

    Night

I have long stayed awake in the hours of Twilight

To write, watch a film, view life in black and white

When the world has a calmer pace

Minutes dangle or run in place

And the years seem to vanish on the face of Night.

    Story

Once upon a tale came a garbled allegory

Whose moral was that borrowers would be sorry

Until the plot was forgot

And the conclusion was not

In time the poor fable would be his-story.

    Allergic Reaction

There once was a gent with an allergy

Whose doctor advised that he swallow a bee

The buzzing was bizarre

So he puffed a cigar

Now he’s worse than before with a skreigh.

    Tatters

A far cry from the rubble-rabble

Of the broken brook that would bubble-babble

With a creeky croak

And one cheeky choke

There are many things that lead to trouble-trabble

Away from the city lurk vipers and beasties

Yet the urban jungle harbors other feasties

Where stalkers prey on the meekish mild

Picking off the solitary like a weak-kneed child

We are all the targets of these walking deceasedies

Every shadow shines with heebie-jeebie eyes

The glowing orbs of furtive goons and guys

Who value life as shallow and cheap

Crawling out of a naked deep

Their blood as cold as the top of the skies

With knives and bullets like teeth and claws

We are caught between their feuds and draws

Or feed their unwholesome appetites

With thuggish snacks and bites

Reducing our lives to mere tatters of gauze.

    The Birdbrain

I once knew a birdbrain who lived in a tall sycamore tree

Though a touch confused, he seemed much happier than me

I would hear him chirping quite merrily

And fear he could tumble out scarily

I’ll never know since he flew off with a flock of Wannabe.

    The Mock-Goose

Along the road to Perdition walked a recluse

Who had the oddest aversion to a mock-goose

No such creature existed

Yet his phobia persisted

So he feared that his fear was just a sad excuse.

    Motley

There once was a sea-diver from Splotney

Whose left foot had a corn he named Motley

They were very close friends

Till the diver got the bends

Now his diving is off, like as knotly.

    Grimmer

There was a Grim Reaper who was a poor sleeper

And accidentally poked out his left and right peeper

Then could not find his way

Or distinguish night from day

So he was re-assigned as a blind landmine sweeper.

    Neither Here Nor There

In the state of being neither here nor there

An idle maniac decided not to care

If he tried juggling thirteen crystal balls

While ignoring a series of weird phonecalls

Now he’s playing with half a deck and doesn’t share.

    Cuckoo

Once there was a cuckoo-bird who was the word

Until a random dictionary labeled him absurd

The cluck demanded a complete revision

And expanded his clockwork precision

Now he pops out every hour on the second or third.

    A Chainsaw Moral

There once was an artist with a shiny new chainsaw

Who thought that cutting was another way to draw

He trimmed every beard

Then it happened as he feared:

All the statues in town have a clean-shaven jaw.

    Gobbledegook

Jibbledee mibbletee bloo

My wish is coming true

This rhyme has no meaning

The clocktower is leaning

And the gobbledegook’s full of glue.

    An Empty Head

Somewhere outside of Muncie I left my left brain

Then felt the lost marbles were driving me insane

And pulled the right half out of my ear

Now everything is balanced and exorbitantly clear

I am happy getting nowhere in the fast lane.

    An Odd Verse

There was a silly man from North Worse

Who had nothing to do with this verse

When it came time to rhyme

He had nothing to add

So he moved to a town called Not Much Worse.

    Slanted

I tend to wear my hat’s brim a trifle canted

For the angle is quite rakish and enchanted

Which does lend a nice effect

And helps to hide an unsightly defect

Of seeing the world as if the ground were slanted.

    Gearhead

There was a big meanie from Knock-Knockitz

Who bore minor grudges in his pockets

Till another gearhead for goodness sake

Invited him to jump in the nearest lake

Now the fish have to deal with his sprockets.

    A Puddle Muddle

I once passed a town in the heart of Kidney

Where everyone had a cousin whose name was Sydney

And they walked with canes that were not umbrellas

For it never rained on the ladies and fellas

Yet the puddles there rose as high as mid-knee.

    Scary

Not everyone is quite as normal as they seem

There are those who have escaped from a terrible dream

While they might look ordinary

They are more apt to be scary

And like nothing better than to hear you scream!

    Old Luggage

A cave-dwelling purple bruta-bagey

Was visited by a rude dorphen-haggy

Who brought so much old luggage

That her host felt too buggage

And pitched all of it off the closest craggy.

    The Jester

There was a jolly old jester named Lester

To whom the bells of his own cap did pester

With every step the shrills resounded

Their mocking notes of irk abounded

So he cursed the dingalings to fall and fester

It happened the way he wished when they dropped

As if by miracle, these sly tinkles plopped

From branches like rotten berries

Fit to frighten starved canaries

Thus Lester in sheer befuddlement stopped

Away they rolled with a jinglesome clamor

That caused the harlequin to shuffle and stammer

In sorrow when the fool realized

A jester was just a man disguised

Unbelled, he was but a carpenter with no hammer

All his lines without punch, his mimes in a crunch

Bereft as Quasimodo without the slightest hunch

Lester recognized his folly

And pursued those bells, by golly

Trailing a stream of cats who thought they were lunch

The clown pitched a heated tantrum as he skipped

Behind the tiny bells that tolled and flipped

Poor Lester’s temper would be lost

He vented frantically the cost

Of replacing the ring-dingies wishful thinking had stripped

The follower gambolled like the clumsiest ox

After the chimes that sped quicker than the slickest fox

Downhill they spilled and bounced

To an alley where Lester pounced

For his bells had come to a dead end, landing in a box.

    A Circus Ditty

A circus of clownfish paddled up the proverbial creek

To visit Shytown and give the locals there a peek

At the sleek and ditzy antics

Of flipping, flopping, dripping frantics

And an aquarium sideshow with an eight-legged freak.

    Fair Warning

The fangs of the backbiting Slingsnatch

Will stab your spine and your nerves attach,

Then into your courage sink cusps like pins . . .

While those teeth flash a few thousand grins,

Out of your flesh will its legions hatch!

    Ode To A Limerick

There once was a crazed poet named Du Bard

Who preferred doing everything too hard

When composing a limerick

She attempted a gimmerick —

Now that poet doesn’t know it but she needs to be on guard

For one dark and stormy night the verses purpled

She killed off her darlings which turpled

Poetic license expired

Her muse up and retired

Then the darlings returned, zombidly extirpled.

    The Woolly Wyrm

Under the twinkling stars of a punch-drunken sky

Lurked a lionhearted snake with a spit in its eye

And a cold midnight gleam in its lengthy tooth,

That could bite much worse than a tiger-shark truth —

For daring to exist without a good reason why.

The grim writher thrived in a fey ambiance of doom,

His ego sinister, with a quantity of gloom,

Abiding in shadow, safe from the arched necks

Of rabid appetites and feverish pecks . . .

Not a hair on his head, the thief burgled many a tomb.

Yet his nature called to be more than a woolly wyrm;

This compulsion ached at the apple-core of the squirm,

So he set out to devour the true undead

With hearts still beating, a warm brain in their head —

To transform, the portly man-eater’s diet must be firm.

Bald and plump, wearing a kingly bristle-patch beard,

This snaggle-jawed whiskered chomp stalked the night most feared.

His belly grumbled and growled the more he prowled;

Incensed, the creep left city and village fouled —

As he crawled amuck, the garish bandit gobbled and leered.

He possessed no remorse for these dire banquets and feasts;

Considering humans the lowest and vainest of yeasts,

He fed as if he deserved far more than others,

For he had no sisters, no friends or brothers —

A solitary hairy monster, remotely wilder than wildebeests . . .

He gulped down the sleeping and chased the night owls,

Relishing their horror, the sharp pitches of men’s howls,

Then curled in a cave to sleep it off, a bloated slug,

The binge’s weight like an overdose of drug . . .

At last the brimming scourge boasted twelve chins and jowls.

The serpent had gorged and burgeoned till he couldn’t move,

Then encased himself with a shell; tucked securely in his groove,

He would slumber and change to another shape:

A huge Buzzard Moth, each wing like a cape —

The worm had turned as if through magic, with a lengthy poof!

He was back to eating carrion, the decaying flesh of mortals,

While his flapping all in vain earned him choruses of chortles.

No longer feared, he was an object of contempt;

Being oversized did not make the moth exempt . . .

Too heavy to fly, the wretch must wait to feed like Bladderwortles.

    The March

March used to be so fierce with a lionic tempestuous roar

Of furor and chill, the final waves blustering from Winter’s shore.

Now most of it lies subdued, a mere bleat;

Even Antarctica has felt the heat —

Once the champion of cold, its vast iciness can thrive no more.

The ranks of Doomsday parade ever onward, full of grievous pomp,

With no trace of mercy, no compassion, the black army will tromp

Over flower and leaf, every plant . . .

All creatures must dread the sound of its chant

As the march led by Man rumbles forth — a grinding glorious stomp!

Wrought by intelligence, blind ambition and progress, day is done

And the night will be long; a harsh season of discontent shall run

The race of time and consequence for all,

Extremes unknown before this Roman fall.

A choir sings; I hear the knells ring; a violin plays for none.

Did we do enough when the hour was upon us like a glutton?

Or ignore the alarm, its gongs and chimes, and push the Snooze Button,

Along with the red nuclear launch switch,

As if possessing self-destruction’s itch?

Were we asleep, unguarded?  But now is past time for tut-tuttin’.

Too late to close barn doors?  March off to peace, not war?  Settle the score?

We must prevail, I implore; not tread footsore, lose esprit de corps . . .

We can rise above these dreadful errors,

Cast aside our lifelong childhood terrors . . .

Do what we can however tardy, and change our fate forevermore!

I weep for March; how meek its wail, how weak and frail it thunders now.

Perhaps we can turn things around.  We mustn’t give up, this I vow.

We are not quitters, merely slow to wake!

Let us join forces and these causes take . . .

It is time to hear a different drum, a hopeful beat; no curtain’s call to bow.

We must not break, must not forsake the gifts of humankind in strife.

So blessed are we, so rich the beauty of our world, each precious life —

The creatures who share it we owe so much,

To protect like children, shelter as such.

How can we not revere the nature that surrounds, once sweet and rife?

March on, let us!  Not to a funeral dirge but a spirited fighting song!

It isn’t over until the battle is won; let us at last, each of us belong

To the right side and resist Abysmal’s tomb;

Give in to the just — grant Evil no room!

Here on a dismal landscape, let us do our best to amend the wrong.

Although I tend to be old-fashioned and behind the times in many ways, whether by choice or budget or for some other reason probably a bit more peculiar, I do on occasion manage to be on time.  It is purely by accident most of the time.  It’s not as if I have some big or little clock I consult like a crystal ball to guide me.  It just sort of happens, as it would happen, and of course I have to make the best of the situation.  What choice do I have?  So here I am on the four hundred and fiftieth birthday of William Shakespeare (wow, this guy’s old) writing an introduction to a “Poetic Reflections” column that has nothing to do with William Shakespeare — according to the title — and it struck me like the gongs of a pendulating clock that hey, I should add a mention of the bard in case he reads my column.  Or even if he doesn’t.  Because he probably doesn’t.  It isn’t as if I’m famous or anything.  I’m not that deluded.

In honor of Shakespeare, I shall throw in some even older English than I usually use in my writing.  Since he’s old.  It seems appropriate.  Who’s still with me?

Let us hitherward be on with it, if you are still here, and gallivant off to the frippery for some well-worn vintage threads to make those captious nattlesome shrews whinge and peenge and fleer at the flounder of lachrymose slathertrashed beggarly whiffingers.

(I am not making this up!  Stick around and I might be.)

Lest the noisome flamfoo yelpers chimble and clapperclaw us to shreddles with their eel-skinned tongues, away to the belltowers where we shall obspliterate the ear-flaps (okay, some of this is mine) of the fremescent nowl-noggined bablatricious quidnunckers with a deafening sound and fury of foofish belfry peals.

(Well, that may have cost me some readers!  But it really isn’t worse than some of my made-up terms.  And I certainly never shy away from inane babble.  Besides, Shakespeare is pretty popular.)

Okay, enough bardolatry.  In the intro, at least.  Suffice it to say, I am a fan of The Man — being the wordsmith and smelter that I am.  I bow and tip my hat to the madcap Father Of Wordfoolery!

Getting back to the theme at hand, in case you survived all of that Cat-Latin illoquence, I would love to speak on the subject of “paranormities” . . . however, I am afraid we’re out of time.  I think it’s a conspiracy of clocks.  They are constantly going faster and faster, the sneaky devils, but I’m on to them!  Oh yes, I am aware of each and every sinister second or minute they trim from the Time Tree (or whatever it grows on).  I’m keeping track.  I know there should be more time for things.  There used to be, and it is maddening how short the days have become.  I simply cannot catch up and on the contrary seem to become increasingly behind schedule with everything.  I am always jogging in place just to stay in the moment, and forget about seizing the day or grabbing the brass ring!  It’s like trying to hop a ride on one of those supersonic bullet-trains.  Good luck with that, hobos and tramps!  Good luck!

(Calm down, calm down.  Everything must change.  It is one of the first things you learn in life, even before you take a step.  It is as unavoidable as baths.  Correction:  You can avoid taking baths for a long time, but then you will be avoided by everyone else.)

Oh very well, if there is time for this incessant drivel, I suppose there is time to squeeze in a word or two on the theme.  It is an interesting topic, which is quite uncommon.  (I tend to pull them out of a hat after cutting up cereal boxes and those pages of small print that come when you buy an electronic device.)  But that’s all I can really say about it.  I mean, it isn’t as if I’m some expert on the matter and go around giving presentations.  So if you want a lecture, you will have to go to a Paranormities Convention.  Of course, you won’t find any because it isn’t even a word.  It is just one of the many that I have twisted and pretzellated for my own purposes with complete disregard for whether it is in the dictionary or not.  Yes, I infuriate the wordagogs left and right.  Okay, I don’t really since I made that one up too, but I would if wordagogs existed!

Let’s just call them wordmongers and be done with it.  And I don’t care whether it’s a word or not!  We aren’t playing Scrabble!  Anything can be a monger, even an acorn, so get over it.  (They drive me crazy with their rules!  Sure, you can use whatever words you please if you’re William Shakespeare or Lewis Carroll or Doctor Seuss, but anyone else forget it!  Even my computer is a critic, underlining countless terms in red as if I am the worst speller or best misspeller in history!  Oh my gosh, it’s even underlining “misspeller”!  There, it just did it again!)

Not that I think everyone should go around spelling however they please.  There have to be standards, I agree.  I’m not trying to set a bad example for anyone, honestly.  I simply can’t help myself.  I have never been normal, ever.  It dates back to when I fell out of the coconut tree and landed on my head.  Most people are born differently, but we can’t choose how we enter the world.  The monkeys are my friends.  Remember that.

This is getting a little too personal.  As you probably know, I’m a private person who puts on her strait-jacket one sleeve at a time . . .  Oh swell, now I’m having an attack of Déjà Vu.  They hit me for no apparent reason, like an ice-cream headache.  Or an ice-cream truck.  I never see them coming.  Weird.

Be that as it may, the choo-choo train has left the station and the cuckoo bird has flown the clock.  There has been much ado about nothing and almost nothing about paranormities.  That’s just the way it goes sometimes.  Most of the time.  And now it is time to bring on the poems, so without further ado (about anything), here they are . . .

Ahem.  Here they are . . .

Um.  Let’s try that one more time.  Here they are!

Or maybe not.

Here . . .

Hmmm.

Here.  They.  Are.

Well, this is embarrassing.

Oh, there they are!  I see them.  I must have been seeing things.  Or not seeing things.  Or looking in the wrong direction.  Whatever.  They’re here.  Here they are . . .

(Down there.)

(Quit looking up, you’ll never find them!  I know people say to look up as a good thing, but in this case you shouldn’t.  You must look down.  Yes, I know that is not considered a good thing, but in this case it is!  You will find that I break a lot of rules.  I even break the occasional ruler.  It’s just how I am.  I may even use “very” and “sudden”, because I don’t like being told that I can’t.  But we’re getting off the subject here, so let us get on with the paranormities.  And the poems.  Down there!)

    paranormities

It can be the tryingest of circumstances

To relieve oneself of inhibitions

Superstitions, premonitions

Not to mention exhibitions

But if we exorcise our right to devote

Ourselves to that which haunts

And reduces us to quivering lumps

Of clay flesh molded

And misshapen by experience

We can be better for the expungination

Of those demons

Unless, of course, the little devils are real

In which case it is best to ignore them

And hope they go away

Because to full-out attempt removing

Such atrocious houseguests

May do more than scare the dickens

Out of you or me

It could leave permanent scars

Cause indelible damage upon your psyche

And your soul

It is quite one thing to tinker with our fears

And something else entirely to mess with

The supernal fabric that separates

Living and dead

The preternaturally inclined

Paranormities of the thirteenth kind

Them

Over there

In the beyond

So let us banish the very thought of it

Perish it too

Just get rid of it

And we will never speak of this again

Pull the covers up over your head at night

Barricade that closet door

Refrain from looking under the bed

No matter what!

And remember, if you hear something tap

At a window

A closet

Your bedroom door

The front entrance

The rear exit

The cellar door

A portal to the attic

A trapdoor

The garage

A shed

A kitty or doggy door

A gate, possibly to Hell . . .

DON’T ANSWER IT!

Live in a state of cautious optimism

And carefully arranged delusion

That everything will be all right

I’m sure you’ll be fine

It’s only your imagination

Right?

    Mayhem

I was strolling in an old cemetery

An undertaking I oft enjoy

When I heard a disquieting noise

That seemed a foreboding ploy

By something or someone rotten

To make me blink, emit a shout

“Sinister!” I merely mumbled

Of that there was no doubt

For I next distinctly heard a moan

Emerge from the sunken ground

Precisely underneath my feet

And then a quite creepy sound

Much like a wheeze, perhaps an oath

As if fetid air were squeezed

From a skeleton’s chest or bellows

How the chilling disturbance teased

Already taut nerves to be plucked

With invisible fingers of dread

I wanted to flee, to skedaddle outright

Yet remained where I quivered instead

A twitter-light layer of fog was present

Its vapors up to my knees or higher

Causing my toes to tingle with fright

And roast as if toasted in a funeral pyre

The brume roiled in a crimson heat

I was forced to bolt, bumping a slab

That marked the grave I had tread upon

There I froze in a pose with naught to grab

When the headstone tumbled over

Creating a shudder that rippled the dirt

And rocked a nearby resting place

My fears would whimper, whisper and flirt

As a second hunk of marble tremored

And a fleshquake wriggled through me

While the marker tipped and crashed

The crepuscular occurrence proved to be

My last filament’s unraveling

For the trembles of the fallen stones

Would concuss the entire graveyard

Rattling courage and the weary bones

Ere a series of measured thumps ensued

I was taken hostage by the gloaming

In a muffled cadence like a beating heart

More tombstones thudded the loaming

My five wits fled, and from my clumsiness

A cache of scrawnies came out of their sloom

To claw through the lids of pine-hewn boxes

In pauper graves at the crack of doom

A feffulent stench reached flaring nostrils

As I sullen-sickly peered into the dark

With a nightfoundering sense of deprivation

And beheld the nebulous ranks of stark

Ethereal vestiges that lingered

Revenants sighed by the jaws of Death

Still clinging to their ivory frames

Diaphanous spirits shorn of breath

Ringing the fringes of unearthed plots

Where a penumbral aura filtered moonbeams

And the skeletons staggered out of their lots

I had disturbed the sleep of the wasted corpses

Whose broad grins were cranky, unamused

Their teeth on edge and bared in grimaces

The gaunt scowls made my body confused

For my knees became dauntedly enfeebled

My pulse turned rapid in a flight response

Though I could not depart on wobbly limbs

And was forced to pretend nonchalance

Disgruntled, withered, the surl-tooth gnarls

Fixed hollow sights on a horror bookwright

Who had clumsily upset their epitaphs

And roused them from the dearth of light

By daring to walk across their graves!

Such colossal cheek could not go unheeded

An intruder, I felt ineptly conspicuous

Until the skelters at once receded

To gape at me from beyond the tombs

Beside their spectral mortifying shades

I was torn by an impulse to jot it down

And the necessity to survive my escapades

At last I surrendered and scrawled a poem

A helpless pawn to inspiration’s thrall . . .

I am scribbling it still, a writer to the end

My only hope that I can capture it all

If I last till the morn, the ghouls may retire

Fading, withdrawing by the gleam of day

Elsewise you will find me clutching my pen

A notepad beneath and my skin a bit gray

Fingers ink-stained, a tophat toppled aside

Thus I will perish, to be buried among them

A mask of terror plastered on my face —

The elegy:  Here lies the author of Mayhem.

    Getting To The Bottom Of Tops

I sit and play with tops all day

Which is really such a distraction

As some may be tough to spiral enough

Others don’t turn with an equal reaction

Neither do they whirl in an opposite twirl

It can be unpredictable at best

They break the rules as if we’re fools

I can’t get them to stay at rest

I don’t get much done except having fun

And it seems a lot to do

To keep them rotating, happily gyrating

I can never visit the zoo!

Many things are missed on my To-Do List

Since these tops took over my life

The pirouetting is truly upsetting

I don’t need the added strife

My eyes are rolling, my brain is bowling

I’m dizzy from the Virginia Reeling

I wish they would spin out of the nuthouse I’m in

I don’t like this merry-go-round feeling

If I wanted to unfurl, I could become a squirrel

Instead of riding this mad carousel

These tops must be evil, the work of a weevil!

My guts are churning, I don’t feel so well

Is there an exorcist for dancing The Twist?

Please stop the train, I want to get off . . .

It’s going in circles, I have other pet irkles

I think I’ve developed an allergic cough

It is kind of numbing, I hear them humming

In my ears, an eerie whining

Like I’m the next to die in a horror film’s eye

And I’m unraveling as if it’s The Shining

Get out of my head!  The ringleader is red

And he’s getting on my nerves

Go away, little rats!  I’ve a case of the drats

I can’t take any more of these curves

I’m the victim of tops, and it just never stops

You’d be wise to heed my cries

Sure, they look very cute but there’s a bitter root

For they’re the devil in disguise!

    foul play

The darkness in a foul mood

Can spread, infecting souls

With a blight that transcends the lowest

Rock-bottom disease known to Man

It is a plague of conscience and mind

Dwelling in the fathomless abyss

Of the human heart

Where not even angels can set foot

Or risk the feathers of their wings

Being singed and scorched by the heat

From the absence of light

For here is where the truest evil frolics

And festers in an ugly boiling broth

Like a cancerous tumor’s countenance

Leaving a wicked taste in the mouth

A fetid odor on the breath of Life

This mood will linger on the lips

In a devilish vampirical smirk so cold

It burns the eyes to behold

Rendering the sockets hollow, stark

And your poor blind soul must grope

Through unrelenting shadows

Attempting to outrun the terrors

In the stagnant frustration of

Dreamflight, the kind where you are

Fleeing a nightmare yet your steps

Take you nowhere, only to a higher state

Of anxiety as your heartbeats echo

For you cannot outrun the foul play

Of childhood memories, whether vivid

Or wisps and fragments in which

Evil came to visit, or moved into

Your bedroom but didn’t stay

In the closet, hide under the bed

And it wasn’t a game

It wasn’t fun at all, and you wished

How you wished with all your heart

That you didn’t have to play.

    peripheral

You know those ephemeral glimmers

The odd flitters and flashes

We see out of the corner of our eye?

They happen a lot, glimpses into darkness

A dash of menace, a glance of alarm

But lately they are tougher to descry

As if they are even more elusive

Racing faster than the speed of light

Ducking my gaze with the slightest hint

A spark, a strobe of something wicked

Evasively darting past or dodging

And all I can catch is a glint

My head cannot turn quick enough

Like a trick of the eye, too brief

A twinkle, gone in less than a blink

I suspect acts of jeopardy are implied —

By monstrous finger-shadow-puppets

The shimmer of a face with a sinister wink

I almost hear whispers under the breath

Murmurs of plottings, yaffles and mutters

Of sly innuendos, rumors kept hushed

While fairy wasps and wisps discreetly pass

Like paranormal orbs or particles of dust

As if the evil afoot is being rushed

I’m afraid to close my eyes even a second

If I look away the visions tantalize

Paranoid impulses rise with each whisk

Eyes flick to the peripherals at any motion

The least movement incites grim palpitations

From the subtle shiftings swept so brisk

Intangible, oblique — I cannot escape

The devious portents and indirect threats

Of their craftiness and cunning stealth

I fret over each furtive insinuation

The artful uncandid fleetings of doom

That imperil my safety and mental health

How I disdain the perfidious poltergusts

That spell trouble and impending disaster

You know the feeling, that sense of dread

For me it is rare not to be stitched with fear

Existing in havoc with flights of despair

Molars corrading, dismal notions in head

They are out to get me I am convinced

Circling like wolves to tear me apart

I live in a panic, a malagrugorous state

My demise is already a foregone conclusion

Yes, woe is me!  It’s my middle name . . .

Oh the horrors that I must contemplate.

    The Dark Hearse

I had a dream that wasn’t as positive as King’s

Though it held grave profundity, bold promisings

Mine was nightmarish, a bitter-deep refrain

Engulfed in the diabolic mists of the strictest plain

An image accompanying the greatest evils known

Like the inaudible clangor of dying alone

Without knells rung, any praises sung

Lonely and forlorn, unnoticed or celebrated

Of such I dreamt, a sorry end anticipated

Then woke in a lather, my heart a bass-drum

Broken free of sleep’s vapors, the dire outcome

I escaped the hand of Destiny, survived a nethertrip

Perhaps it was a mix-up, an administrative slip

Through the fabric of my fate, or I got there too late

A fortunate coincidence that liberated this soul

From the shackles of punishment due for the role

In a lifetime of playing the villain or bad guy

It is easy to be typecast once living a lie

To be stuck in a groove on the record of Time

Dizzy with the whirligiggles of a paradoxic paradigm

It wasn’t the right path, and I now face the wrath

It is coming for me, fueled by fire and brimstone

A fury unleashed out of the hottest Red Zone

That dark hearse from Hell is calling my name

Running on the fumes of infinite blame

I may not be innocent, without a few flaws

My confession is valid, I have broken some laws

Yet my crimes are small, almost nothing at all

I predicted the future, mishaps and diseases

A Tyromancer, divining truth from curdled cheeses

I wanted to stand out from the usual palmreaders

The crystal-ball seers and religious heartbleeders

Out to save the world from trials and tribulations

I was trying to save myself in the coagulations

My targets were buffoons, the easy gossoons

Believers that answers might thus be discerned

By a clump of milk clots could lessons be learned

The craziest of methods I studied in vain

And presented as signs the conjurings of my brain

Every solemn tiding or omen was pure baloney

Utter fable, the fabrication of a ridiculous phony

And this my purport, the malfeasant extort

For you have to admit that it sounds too absurd

Deriving prognostication out of a curd

Now the hearse with flames is on the prowl

Windows tinted, motor revving with a beastly growl

Tail fins sleek, black coat gleaming, it surges higher

Hood and flanks burning with yellow and orange fire

I hear the deathmobile’s roar as it thunders to my door

A false prophet, I am sure I should have kept mum

I failed to foresee my folly and glean what would come

It is cold comfort to feel snatched by a blazing dragon

The advent of a hellish souped-up meatwagon

With a demonic driver grinning behind its wheel

Charging to collect me in a fell swoop of steel —

A joyride on the dark hearse; what could be worse?

Fishing about in my brainpool for a suitable title and theme of my next poetry column, I hooked a big one.  You know the beast, one of those grandiose whoppers that gives birth to legends.  Despite the magnitude of its dimensions, it is a little odd as a subject for a group of poems, yet that has never stopped me before.  In fact, it only seems to encourage me.  And now that I think of it, perhaps it is high time for a column that is rather outlandishly off the track and around the bend.  I do love a good venture into the Land Of Odd.  Also known as Tinker Town, Bananasplitsville, Coconuts City,  Cotton Candy Land, Crackpottersville, Battyburg, Madhatterton, Who’s Whoville . . . the kind of places I am most likely to write on a cardboard sign and stand beside the road hitchhiking to — in a parallel galaxy where mice are men and men are meeses, which are like mooses without the horns.  Not that I am trying to give the impression I’m weird, because I am most emphatically not!  Well, I am weird, don’t get me wrong, but that has nothing at all to do with lake monsters.  Then again, you never know.  I try to keep an open mind about such possibilities, in case I should ever meet a lake monster or be abducted by aliens or find a fly in my soup.  I have found cockroaches in my soup, incidentally, although that is another topic entirely and would be more appropriate in a different column.

Don’t mind me, I’m just being myself, or as close to it as I can considering that weirdness doesn’t actually have an official description or dress code or hairstyle or shoe size or instruction manual . . .  So how should I know how to be, and who can say how or who I really am?  It’s a bit of a One-Size-Fits-All category.  Weirdos are lumped under a single polka-dotted umbrella as offbeatniks.  But you really can’t say that anything abnormal and out of the ordinary is one way or another, can you?  Wouldn’t generalizing it be contradictory in a sense, when being weirdos would imply that we are very unlike anyone, including each other?  Okay, this might be making too much sense for one of my nonsense rambles.  I think I am dangerously close to coming to a point.  Not a pinhead sort of point, the other kind.  No, not the type you get when you sharpen a pencil.  And before you suggest it, not a dot on a map either!  Or a decimal point!  Let’s just change the subject and get back to what we weren’t discussing in the first place, shall we?

Don’t ask me what that was.  My memory is notoriously full of holes.  Just picture the moon being made of Swiss Cheese.  That’s my brain.  It may look like a sponge but it’s not.  It’s Swiss Cheese.  Without the cheese.

I’m not sure where I’m going with any of this, because I tend to be a bit stranger than fiction, if you get my drift.  And I do drift.  Oh how I drift.  But back to the matter at hand, which is . . . ah-ha, lake monsters.  (I cheated and peeked at the top of the page.)  Seriously, what is this about?  It’s rather loopy, even for me.  And not loopy in a loup-garou sort of way — that would be pretty silly since we’re supposed to be discussing a far less furry crypto-critter.

Well, who can be certain that werewolves and lake monsters are not related to some degree?  If you think about it, lycans and lichens sound an awful lot like cousins, and everyone knows that a lichen is just a fluffy version of a waterlily.  So who’s to say that a wolfman is not a lake monster’s hairy kin?  One might in fact deem him a lake monster while he’s taking a bath.  Never thought about that, now did you?  Exactly.

Okay, I don’t want to appear flaky or crusty or even slightly crumbly.  I am not baked goods.  But I am going to make an editorial decision here, as opposed to poetic license, and bail on the afore-mentioned theme.  It simply isn’t working out, so please disregard the title up there.  And whatever I’ve said thus far.  Pretend it never happened.  I’m too lazy to start over.  (Sorry, there are no refunds available for the minutes lost in reading the above.)  We shall segue into something else . . . once I’ve made up my mind what we’re actually talking about.  There must be a better choice out there, floating around in the ether like those squiggly blobs that swim in front of our eyes.  We’ll pause and wait for it to splat us in the face.

Oh, quit your complaining!  There are plenty of things to read that make sense!  If you’ve ever been to my previous poetry columns, you must know that I do not always feel the need to go on and on about something.  Going on about nothing can be very cathartic.  It allows you to meditate; just be careful not to premeditate — that could get you into trouble.  It could even be held against you in a court of law.  Clear your head and enjoy the mindless emptiness of meaning that my column provides.

Where were we?  Or rather, where were we not?  Waiting?  Right!  I knew that.

Nothing so far.  But we all knew that.  Let’s see, where are we going with this?  You may think it paradoxic to be going somewhere with nothing, but I assure you it is possible.  Not everyone can pull that off.  It’s a tricky proposition.  Or preposition.  Or premonition.  Whatever.  Now I have Déjà Vu and my head hurts from thinking too hard.  You can’t force these things.  They’re either there or they’re somewhere else.  Who knows where?  In a lake, perhaps.

That title is looking better.

There are so many theories on lake monsters, approximately as many as there are lakes.  I could probably find something unnoteworthy to say about them if I really tried.  It’s back to the lake for us!

If you’re still with us, that is.  And if you are, maybe I’m not the only one whose brain is like Swiss Cheese.  Just a thought.

Soooo, are you certain I haven’t scared you away with my frightfully off-the-wall drivel?  It can happen!  Now and then I scare myself away.

Ha, there, it just happened!  Except I wasn’t scared, I fell asleep.  After a nice nap, that title doesn’t seem so bad at all.  I believe you can anticipate a few poems to do with, well, you know.  It could even be the weirdest column yet.  One can hope!  One can also wonder . . . when you gaze into the lake, is anything looking back?

Beneath your reflection.

I’m not referring to fish.

Or frogs.

Or turtles.

Or mudpuppies.

A minnow is a fish.  I said no fish.

Ditto for a bullhead.

And a catfish.  Despite the whiskers.  Still a fish.

Ignore the dead bloated guy.

And the Atlanteans.

Forget the Sea Monkeys.  They don’t even live in lakes!

Noooo, clams do not count.  For one thing, where are their eyes?

Crabs?  Are there lake crabs?  Yes, they do have eyes, don’t they?  But I didn’t mean crabs, and now I am getting quite crabby!  Nevermind, just nevermind!  I withdraw the question.  Read some poems.

    lake monster

She lurks in the drink, a sweet-water pet

The kind you might not be sure to have met

Elusive as Bigfoot, a popular myth

Every lake has its legend on one of her kith

A tarn in the highland became her home

When an oddity left Mother’s side to roam

She swam to the mountains and there would stay

Diving and splashing, a figment at play

For such fabled beings are like unicorns

Rumored and rare, yarns of tails and horns

Chimeric and lithe, a creature of whim

A fanciful mystery, a history most grim

For she ate a few chaps fishing from a small boat

When they reeled in her lunch, deep in her throat

And she opened wide to expel the trouts

But swallowed the men beyond any doubts

Their craft was discovered, an empty shell

Inspiring the tales that wives like to tell

As folklore would have it, she was fierce and sly

A man-eating monster, who was actually shy

And only ate people by a tragic mistake

Yet once was enough for the story to take

Her renown would be sealed, and the price of fame

Was losing her privacy, acquiring a name

The locals would dub her by the beast’s lofty lair

Mad Minnie for Lake Minnewonka’s fantastic bugbear

Her shore became crowded with goggling fans

The kind who sought snapshots of catch-as-catch-cans

Which drove her to the bottom of a frothy pool

Reclusive, notorious, inclined to drool

Unable to frolic, afraid to show her face

A very Sad Minnie would curl up at the base

Or glide through the depths like a submarine

To emerge at night by the moon’s dull sheen

If the coast were clear, using stealth and care

Tuned for beeps and pings, an unblinking stare

Then smack the surface with a jubilant tail

Make waves, cause ripples, lunge out like a whale

Giggling and capricious, a child in a bath  —

Snorts of glee echoed as if on the warpath

Convulsing tree boughs and soaking the bank

Heaving caution to the wind with herself to thank

And spectators camped by the lake would arise

To shine spotlights in the poor critter’s eyes

Blinded, keenly startled, she panicked and dove

For the craggish floor of the alpine cove

Where her cranium collided on a jutting rock

She collapsed to the bed, very stunned by the knock

Blood spilled to the water and darkened its hue

Teams of science geeks jumped in, turning blue

Half couldn’t swim but the other half found her

Together they looped several lassos around her

The locals and gawpers all pitched in to raise

The titanic young dragon to resounding praise

They attempted reviving her; she lay cold and still

Was Minnie dead?  Through the crowd passed a chill

No heartbeat was detected, no breath puffed to steam

They sat in a vigil holding hands with one dream . . .

By morning she was gone, having stolen away

And did not return for she’d swum far astray

Perhaps she was seen on another lake

In a distant land, sailing mists like a drake

Or flat and lengthy as a drifting log

To vanish by magic between gusts of fog

A solitary figure, stately and discreet

Moving like a ghost ship that lost its fleet.

    fishbait

The lake is still upon the surface

With nary a ripple out of place

Hugging her shoreline wrapped securely

In a glassen cloak of captive grace

As night solemnly joins land to water

And a mysterious realm can unfold

It is then the lake reveals its depths

Of emerald beauty, allure untold

Her mouth yawns widely to engulf

Any unsuspecting random spirit

If you value life as precious

You had better not step near it

For the lake heeds not your feelings

Waiting patient and subtle to imbibe

With a watery glimmer of disregard

Giving off a tender treacherous vibe

She can drag you squirming to her belly

Entwine your limbs in drowning plants

And paralyze with a frosty embrace

As your breath escapes in pants

The bubbles ascend to the surface

From a bleak and nasty underside

While you rue the fateful steps that led

Too near the water, this downward slide

Sucked within her lips and jaws

You cannot escape the foul wet bite

Of turbid teeth and hook-like claws

As she tucks you in for a kiss goodnight

The lake will drain your bodyheat

With frigid contact, she grants no wish

But will nibble you to bits and pieces

Until you are chum, the bait of fish.

    the creature

It was a black lagoon beside a dead lake

Of ghastly sluggish waters from which protruded,

Like worked-to-the-bone fingers of a failed success,

The rotted extremities and stumps of trees submerged

In the changing tides of industrial climates.

Such trivial concerns long overlooked in the course

Of history, of centuries that marched in legions

Like armies to conquer flesh, harness fire and wind,

Unleash disaster from sky and summit, roar obscenities,

As if by dragonbreath or divine unholy wrath.

Laying to ruin the stormed barricades of stone,

The embattled ranks of wood and trampled stalks

That clung defenseless, rooted in soil shifting to sands

From down within the bowels of tormented earth, for nothing

Built or born, however imperious, was impervious to change.

Here lurked the truth, a confession of damming evidence

Stacked up in layers — sticks and stones, mud and corpses

At the bottom line of humanity versus nature and nurture,

Whatever kind of nature might be left in a grim age,

Beneath the surface of what was and what should be.

A creature evolved mad with full-grown enmity and eyes

Opened to the greed, the transgressions of those like him

On two legs who were not condemned by gills or scales,

By monstrous differences to exist apart, below the civilized —

If the destroyers of worlds could be so defined.

Emerged whole, crawlen out of a fetal griefstruck womb

Throbbing with the pulse of cosmic and poetic justice,

He swam then climbed the slope onto the inlet’s berm.

Resting there, testing appendages, he wobbled to stand

Upon webbed toes and stagger forth in the realm of men.

Walking on dry land with wet legs, he left a swampy abode

To trace a solid stream that trembled with a rushing current,

Until he must hurl himself to the side and watch

A ghost of man-driven metal rampage through darkness,

Orbs gleaming, expelling a stench of noxious fumes.

He curled, hunched and brooding, in terror;

Summoned by circumstance to embark on this ordeal,

The solo alien odyssey of passage, of transformation.

Suffocating, his resolve to search overwhelming,

He endured, beholding enigmas, struggling on.

The creature matured with a wild innocence

As he tread firm ground in confidence, conviction,

Crossing a desert of arid intensity in every direction.

Eyelids sagging, hooded by glare; the pace brisk at night,

He survived, a fish out of water, adapting to foreign land.

A city’s hulking skeleton loomed, rewarding labored steps,

An arduous journey of blistered feet and parchment skin.

Shrunken, diminished in the company of ravaged leviathans,

He peered upward at vacant towers, vertical wreckage,

To discover himself encircled, a ring of shadows.

They were the children of Pathos and Chaos,

The permuted metamorphic spawn of Progress.

They had gathered, drawn like him to seek community,

For it was an instinctive need of even the the most estranged

Or isolated soul, to not be alone in the universe.

Each one of a kind, without a species in common,

Rendered by a generic maker, the creation of abrasive deeds.

Curiosities, atrocities, with a variety of distinctions;

Unique, anomalous, none of them the same;

Kernels of warped matter, mutations of a man-made Hell . . .

Who were the real monsters?

    Bessie

Before you jump into a lake

You may wish to look before you leap,

For you never know what might jump out

Or be lurking in the murky deep.

Take care along the water’s edge

For a snapping mouth could take a bite;

There are many things that may go wrong —

I suggest you back away outright!

And it isn’t merely lakes to fear,

There are monsters lurking everywhere . . .

A stormdrain, river, creek, or shower;

A glass of water will cause a scare.

The greatest danger I’ve come across

Was in the humblest of places:

A puddle of mud on a plain dirt lane

Put my heartbeat through its paces.

I was minding my own business once

And splashed a foot into the muck.

You can imagine my immense dismay

When my shoe grew rather stuck.

It wasn’t that the mire was sticky

Or the puddle muddled with a patch of briars;

I stepped into a monster’s chops

And needed a pair of pliers.

She had swallowed my entire foot

And wouldn’t give it back!

I thought I’d have to learn to walk

One-footed from the lack.

I scrutinized my situation,

Then tried to reason with the beast.

“I need that foot!” I told her.

“So please interrupt your feast!”

I named her Bessie in order that we

Might be properly introduced.

She wasn’t inclined to release my piggies,

And I pondered how to get myself loosed.

She muttered with her mouth full

That a mudbath was no wishing well.

She may have said some other things

But I really couldn’t tell.

“You aren’t making any sense.

Don’t talk around your food.”

I demanded that she spit it out,

For the puddle-shark was rude!

“I’m attached to those toes,

And it’s my favorite heel.

They’re not yours to keep!

I mean, how would you feel?”

I carped, “It’s my best shoe too,

So I insist that you stop!

Give me back my foot, thief,

Or I’ll call a traffic cop!”

I shamed the ornery anklebiter

With a testy spew of grouching.

“And what are you supposed to be?

Stand up straight, quit slouching!”

She expelled my tootsie then,

Blatting in a snittle-fit huff

With tremendous indignation

That she’d heard about enough.

The cranky krakenous hybrid

Unreeled from her shallow slop,

Extending an endless profusion

Of eelish neck that ceased to stop.

Perhaps the height was finite,

But it seemed to climb forever,

Like a beanstalk to the heavens

Or an example twice as clever.

“I’ll have you know you stepped on me!”

A faraway voice grumbled.

“Let’s call an ox an ox,” she barked,

“And admit it was you who bumbled!”

“That’s a load of hogwashed nerve!”

My jaw hung open, catching flies.

“You’re jealous of me for being short!”

The retort evoked surprise.

“You think I’m envious of you?

I can write on the sky!” touted Bessie.

“I’m a big monster in a little pond,

And much prettier than Nessie!”

“You’re nothing but a hippocrite —

A puddle serpent with her head in the clouds,

Who dreams of swimming with the big fish,

An inflated pack of snooty highbroweds!”

The behemoth truly had it coming,

Yet it wasn’t very nice to say.

My words cut Bessie down to size,

And a salamander crept away.

    a fish named frog

Things can be muddled, horrendously confused

From life imitating art or death while we snoozed

Maybe all of our dreams are regrets in reverse

And the thoughts in our heads but a fairytale curse

Like a song in our mind that gets broken and stuck

At times a bad break can turn into good luck

Perhaps a fish named frog isn’t nearly as crazy

As trying to see truth when your lenses are hazy

The world is like a pearl in a shiny oyster shell

With naught guaranteed between Heaven and Hell

There may be woolly monsters or a clump of moss

What we pull from the hat could be an albatross

Just stay out of the water when you jump in the lake

And don’t ever say never or the earth might quake

It’s the fine print of rules that will drive you insane

These fishes named frogs are purely inane.

But you can’t plant a violet and push up a daisy

Or jump over the moon if you’re feeling too lazy

The sky may be overcast on a clear blue day

A clam could be sad, yet a lighter shade of gray

And you’ll never stand taller than the bird in your eye

You cannot walk much softer than the heart of a pie

A fish on your shoulder as you gargle out of tune

Means your voice is froggier than a yodeling balloon

If monsters had middle names and goldfish dreamed of legs

There’d be urchins in the pond hatched from dinosaur eggs

Let us gallop like scallops on the backs of water stallions

Rapscallions trotting after in a herd of Spanglish galleons

And none would be the wiser for we paddle our own canoes

Call the fishes what you please, it’s your turn to pick and choose

Just don’t juggle with the turtles or make fun of a zebra’s spots

There are rules to be contorted into lovely bows and knots

Regardless who you are, you shouldn’t argue with yourself

Leave the attitude at home, the complaint jar on the shelf

Brush those chips off your shoulder, the crumbs off your lap

Never tiptoe in reverse or walk on hands without a map

Don’t wear a bottom-hat to the opera, pajamas over a coat

Let your counting sheep run off but never let them get your goat

Lend your socks to an octopus when removing every doubt

And be sure to skip the rope, for it won’t lend you any klout

I’ve forgotten about frogs, or were we talking about fishes?

It is impolite to mumble when making your three wishes

Countless axioms are moot unless you maximize your addage

Then subtract the difference between a turnip and a cabbage

If you have a carrot top, you can always join the aside-show

Where nothing is straightforward, except where babybuggies go

And that fishes may be frogs if they were once in time a tadpole

Therefore, guppies can be puppies if they learn to dig a hole.

    Lady

There are ballads and chronicles of females in lakes

Benign, wicked, an enchantress or harsh mistress

Poised between angels and she-devils they wait

Like ballerinas captive in a wind-up music box

Suspended in motion, preserved in memory

There for the asking by those in need or want

Of a momentary comfort, a crystalline indulgence

But the lake is a chill and demanding lord

For an elegant lady — flesh cool, eyes glittery

Glimpsed like jewels through a lucid tea

Strands of hair fanning, spread in a majestic cloud —

She cannot breathe underneath its cloak of waves

The bubbles are her drowning chain of commands

A shimmering trail of last gasps, unheard sighs

As the lake tows her down, down, down . . .

Spinning, twirling like a dancer, eyes wide

Into the pit of her confinement, a glass coffin

That only the bottommost-dwellers can see

Nestled on a bed of shells, interred like a queen

To awaken and greet visitors with a regal smile

An icy touch or stare, a beautiful siren’s welcome

Until then she rests, her hands modestly folded

In classic repose like a fairytale princess

Features unperturbed, absent of expression

Her dreams the nightmares of a fractured predestined fate

An indentured servant to a body of ageless drops

The pool of lost hopes and shattered illusions

Dredged by vast sorrows spilled into a glacier’s footprint

Wept by the mother of Time, collected like rain in a jar

In turn a fair lady was chosen to wallow in its tears

Demurely offer solace and sharp blades with a statue’s calm

The composure of a department-store mannequin

Frozen in a gesture as she is locked

Though she undulates toward the air like current

And exudes the lissome grace of a swan

Do not be fooled by appearances for she

Is less content to be window-dressing

A symbolic slave to the travails of womanhood

Exalted yet imprisoned, becoming a nymph

In all but spirit, for that has died and been embalmed

The lake her grave, a watery vault, the lady’s tomb

She cannot escape its grasp, the walls of the crypt

Blurred eyes no longer pierce this veil of dark and light

Her burial shroud of liquid envelops like a net

Surrounding a dolphin or porpoise, trapping a whale

Her screams and misery are silently contained

In limbo, within the velvet fathoms of the lake.

'Tis that time of year, my dear, when it must be mentioned unmentionable things.  You know what I'm talking about . . .

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In life there are periods of calm punctuated by phases of unrest when things become hectic.  And then there are times when You-Know-Where breaks loose and we are thrust into a state of absolute havoc.  But that isn't what I wish to discuss.  It's simply an observation.  We all have those sudden cliffhangers when the tension is cranked beyond our limit.  When we're dangling by a scrawny filament or skating on a brittle sheet of ice.  We may even feel disoriented, like our life is not our life.  Picture if you will a cuckoo bird landing on

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Yes, you read correctly.  This is about perspiration.  But not just any perspiration.  No, no.  The stuff of inspiration.  More to my point, the sweat of inspiration.  I'm not talking about sweaty armpits.  I refer instead to the beaded brow of an artist slaving feverishly to convey the resplendent vision of an illuminated mind struck by . . . you guessed it . . . inspiration.

I am going to be uncharacteristically redundant, so please bear with me.

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There is a lot of static in the world.  The drone or buzz of contention in the air.  A steady hum in your ears if you're like me.  You can hear it if you stop to listen.  It's there, whether soft or loud, in the electric wires; in the throb of pulses, the steady march of Time.  In the heat of a moment when everything stands still and some messed-up misguided member of society feels alienated or miserable enough to contemplate something unthinkable, drastic, catastrophic . . . in a vain unconscionable effort to balance chaos.

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If people could save all of the time in a bottle that they spend in retrospect . . . clinging to what was or what could have been instead of looking forward to life, moving on . . .

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