What’s in Parenthesis
You can
leave out
anything
you know
said Hemingway.
Bad news for
someone with a
photographic
memory.
Category Archives: poems & short jabs
what’s in parenthesis
Filed under poems & short jabs
unplugged
Unplugged
Darwin wrote
On the Origin
of the Species
longhand with
pen & ink.His wife
read the
manuscript by
candlelight at
the kitchen
table in
one setting.The next morning
Darwin wrapped
the manuscript
in butcher
paper &
put it on a
horse-drawn
mail wagon
to London.The book
sold out its
first day
in print.There are
many ways to
change the world
without joining
Facebook.
Filed under poems & short jabs
trapped in opposition
Trapped in Opposition
He shows up
in line
behind me
in the
upper county
Safeway in a
suit & tie
wearing a
name tag
beard & a
ponytail.
An incongruous
combination,
but he’s
in transition
after years of
fist in
the air &
piecemeal employment.
Hey Waco, I say
(it’s the only
name I know him by)
looks like you
came in
from the cold.
He doesn’t
laugh his
normal laugh,
he frowns
instead &
adjusts his
new company
glasses.
Yeah, I finally
came to my
senses, he says.
You saw
the light,
I say.
You bought the
full enchilada.
That’s right
he says,
neither humored
nor insulted.
Full medical
sick pay
paid vacation
retirement.
Waco held out
longer than
most,
he’s in his
40s,
but it’s not
a matter of
holding out,
it’s a matter
of being
something else.
It’s what pissed
me off about
the hippies,
even as I
frolicked among
them sporting
my own
long hair &
beard.
Maybe it’s time
you get your
act together too,
says Waco.
Too late for me
I say.
I’ll just have to
forgo the
benefits.
I had my
groceries sacked
by this time,
& as I was
leaving I
tapped him
on the shoulder
with my fist
like in the
old days.
He pulled back
& brushed the
sleeve of his
suit coat,
like it was
swarming with
stigma.
Filed under poems & short jabs
touchstones of a keening heart
Touchstones of a Keening Heart
There’s no way to
turn the moon
to cheese.
For water to
gurgle green
thru silage.
For the heart
to mend, tossing &
turning on a
bed of nails.
For the dream
to come true
once your
eyes open.
They give you
a thimble & a
six-inch length
of thread & say:
“Sew us a
garment as radiant
as Solomon’s!”
It’s hopeless
but you
set to work.
Was it a
hasty decision
back down
the line that
makes you as
alone at
80 as at 8,
or something
unavoidable?
& what is this
infestation that
still wonders why,
the only burr
left under your
saddle?
By now you
should be
riding bare-back.
These are the
scribbled notes
of a
wounded man
trying to
name his heirs.
But no one
steps forward to
don the mantle,
radiant but so
very small.
Filed under poems & short jabs
the threshold of quantum-leap evolution
THE THRESHOLD OF QUANTUM-LEAP EVOLUTION
Offering myself
as a
guinea pig
for a
new high-tech
imaging device
in exchange
for a
free eye exam &
some dental work
I set off a
red alert.The doctors
sidestepped
the word
possessed but
something their
machine couldn’t
identify
had built
tiny huts in
my lungs with
thatched roofs
of tobacco leaves.
Also, my
brain was
filled with
words
draped in
dream that
embraced
each other.The words
seemed to be
pouring in
thru my
eyes &
ears as
sensations,
& after what
the doctors
termed a
gestation period
they’d
melt into my
glottis or
use my
blood cells
as small
boats to
sail into my
fingertips.All this was
way more
than the
doctors had
bargained for.
They tested me
for drugs &
asked
trick questions
& then they
placed me in
quarantine
for a month.On the
bus home
after my
release the
little people
who lived
in the
tiny huts
came out
in the
open &
invited
the words to
join them for
a luau, &
after the feast
they began
drawing
crude pictures
in charcoal
on the
back of
the seat in
front of me
of the man the
psychiatrists had
following me,
sitting at the
back of
the bus
pretending to be
engrossed in a
magazine.Before I
realized it
my fingers had
pulled a
pencil from my
coat jacket &
in the margins
of a newspaper
someone had
left behind
scrawled
the word
run! with
such ferocity
that the
paper tore.
Filed under poems & short jabs
true romance
True Romance
The Void is
enraptured with
the slightest movement
or any
splash of
color.
Filed under poems & short jabs
