The Ghost of Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
challenged me
to a
game of
chess in
the Atlanta
airport
boarding area.
He said
he would
beat me in
fifteen moves.
It took
seventeen.
“I’m all
washed up,”
he said,
& hopped
a flight
to Iceland.
Author Archives: Klaus
The Ghost of Bobby Fischer
Filed under poems & short jabs
tent city
Tent City
The city began issuing pop-up tents to the homeless. They’re popping up all over town. They’re bright orange and pale blue. Word got out thru the homeless grapevine, and homeless people began drifting into town from as far away as Seattle. The food bank is out of everything but cheese and canned apple sauce.
This is what happens when liberals take control, a spokesperson for the Republican party said in a press release, and that very night gangs of young Republicans began roaming the streets with baseball bats, attacking anyone they found in a tent and then setting the tent on fire. The homeless began putting mannequins in their tents and sleeping in alleys again. To date the young Republicans have destroyed three hundred mannequins and burned 142 tents.
Where the homeless are getting the mannequins is a mystery and a concern for both liberals and conservatives. They suspect the Green party is behind it, and if the destruction of mannequins continues, acts of terrorism could easily break out. The liberals and conservatives have formed an uneasy alliance.
The mainstream media went on a feeding frenzy, and Obama showed up out of nowhere and gave a speech from the county courthouse steps that jacked him up eight points in his popularity rating. Romney has remained silent on the issue, and a hacker claiming affiliation with Anonymous released a flood of emails showing that Romney is a major stock holder in the company that manufactures both the tents and the mannequins.
Homeland Security stepped in and established a five-acre holding compound on the outskirts of town, surrounded by concertina wire and an electric fence. Anyone found in a tent after dark is taken into custody and held in the compound without visitation privileges or right to legal council. A handful of children camped out in their back yards have been separated from their families in this way.
Political pundits predict the outcome of the upcoming presidential election hinges on what happens next.
Filed under shards
the great green charger with apocalyptic eyes
The Great Green Charger with Apocalyptic Eyes
The steady beat of the drum. The westward-ho crowd and the war parties. The scalp pole. Now and then someone smokes a peace pipe.
Twitter this now, fertilize your trousers. Fifteen minutes of fame and a lifetime of regret. The line forms at the rear but do you think he’ll get in it? He won’t even negotiate with the gray ghost. He wanders off into the kiddie park dispensing half-inflated balloons.
These are the problems that plague a perfect society, the skid marks that go right thru the guardrail.
The Great Plan unfolds full of pig iron and coal. Trumpets go digital and guitar strings slither like snakes. The drummer takes a smoke break and shoots up in the men’s room. The lead singer thumps the mike and says, “Testing, one, two–are we ready to rumble?“
The crowd goes wild. “God bless America!” they sing like a chorus of frogs.
“Up against the wall, mutha-fuka!” they sing.
Tu madre and my gal Sal, doing the nasty in the melting pot.
Now they’re primed. They wipe out the prisoners and go on a feeding frenzy.
Filed under shards
special people
Special People
There are
special people
who glow
like fireflies
& float
unfettered like
pollen who
suffer softly
& dream
roses &
lily pads
whose smile &
gentle touch
soothe the
multitudes who
acquire wealth
in abundance
as a
result of
their being &
pass it
on as if
it were a
river that
runs thru
them.
This is
what greatness
is a
gift that
cannot be
acquired.
They’re living
proof if
there is
such a
proof of a
benevolent God
out of
reach to the
rest of us.
Filed under poems & short jabs
sturm und drang – for maia Penfold
John Bennett & Maia Penfold – 1981
Sturm und Drang
She’s 82
lives alone
her life
filled with
care givers &
pain a
broken hip
two strokes
no padding left
between the
vertebrae in
her spine.
Yesterday her
doctor
told her
she was
too far gone
for them to
squirt
whatever it is
they squirt
between
vertebrae to
alleviate pain
& then
alluded to
assisted suicide.
I’m rushing to
bring out her
last book of
poetry the
project ground
to a halt
around one poem
we can’t locate
that she
insists be
in there–
Sturm und Drang,
the story of her
whole courageous
life.
Filed under poems & short jabs
random question
RANDOM QUESTION
Ignorance may be bliss but is bliss ignorance? Does the converse equal the inverse, and why did Kenneth Patchen make Henry Miller uneasy?
What is Fascism? Is it just another word for nothing left to lose?
Did the CIA poison Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison and brutally murder JFK and Martin Luther King? The NSA then? The Cosa Nostra? A deranged alchemist and a lone gunman with a sordid sex life?
Is “All Hail the Chief” a code phrase that triggered 9-11, a sign from god, or the theme song of the Chattanooga Fire Department?
Does complicit equal illicit or just mask conspiracy? Does the rule of law bring peace and prosperity to the disenfranchised? Who does the franchising to begin with? What’s the price of the buy-in?
Am I here all alone? Are you? Shall we put our heads together and look for the loophole, the booby trap, the glimmer of hope?
Do you see what I’m getting at? Do you want to go there? Why does the king have a new set of clothes while the lone wolf goes naked?
Where did the line get crossed where learning became conditioning?
Is it really that bad?
Do you think I’ve gone overboard?
Will you throw me a life line and drag me through the wake until my lungs burst?
Why has everything profound been leeched dry?
Words attached to meaning no longer have meaning. So hush now and begin to sing.
Hit a high C and explode this ceramic world into a billion crystals.
Filed under shards
