They Won't Cancel St. Valentine's Day

 

                Cupid looked at his wristwatch anxiously. The bus was already 25 minutes late. He looked down the long straight street for some sign of the bus, but there was just nothing in sight. He pulled at the edges of his diaper and nervously adjusted his “St. Valentine’s Day” sash across his baby sized torso. “This was just irresponsible,” thought Cupid as he tapped his baby foot on the sidewalk.

                  “Why not just fly,” asked a voice from behind Cupid. A disheveled looking man stepped up toward Cupid, “um, you know, because you have, wings, right?” Cupid rolled his eyes.

                 “Hello Dionysus,” sighed Cupid, “You know why I can’t use my wings. They are too small to support my weight here. They only work on Earth and Gamma Hydra Forty-Seven in the Claxar Galaxy,” said Cupid.

                 “Right, right, and you can’t drive because your little baby legs don’t reach the pedals,” said Dionysus as he chuckled. He stumbled forward a little as he tried to regain his bearings. He reached out to the bus stop bench to steady himself. “I almost spilled my wine.”

                 “Yeah. Great,” said Cupid. He looked nervously at his watch again. If he didn’t get on the next bus in the next few minutes, he’d miss his ride to Earth for St. Valentine’s Day. And then no one could meet, and fall in love and make sweet sweet loving.

                 Dionysus sat down on the bench and laughed. He took another swig from is wine skin and wiped his lips with his robes.

                 “Why are you waiting for the bus,” asked Cupid.

                 “Oh, me,” said Dionysus, “I can’t drive be, because, of the thing, the thing with the driving, with my… my license was suspenders, suspended, I mean.”

                 Cupid nodded and took a baby step to his right to move away from Dionysus.  He looked back down the street and there was still no bus in sight.

                 “I don’t think it’s coming,” said Dionysus, “I think that they that hit something. I think they hit, they hit, Sisyphus, or his boulder or both, Ha!”

                 “Is that true? Is that what you heard,” asked Cupid. Cupid felt panic rush though his little baby heart.

                 “I don’t, um, don’t know if that’s what it is, that it is that it’s what it is,” said Dionysus.

                 “What,” asked Cupid, “forget it. I don’t have time.” He took out a tiny cell phone and started frantically trying to find a ChUber.  (Which is of course a Chariot you can call for rides.)

                 “I don’t think you’ll get a ChUber, now, like, it’s almost Valentines Day. They’ll be so busy,” said Dionysus, “but I hope we can hang out like the old, olden, the old days, when you, you get back, because that would be fun.” He fell asleep with his chin on his chest.

                 “Damn it,” said Cupid. “Of all the days…,” He sighed and looked down the street again. A ChUber was two minutes away.

Why I Love Writing Poetry

 

Why I love writing poetry...

…is a curious question.

I bet… it’s because of…

Ellipses.

 

Yeah.

Probably because of Ellipses.

 

Or it could very well be the

freedom of words and thoughts

that poetry allows to splash onto

a page in colors too vibrant for

words and words too vibrant for

colors.

 

Or…

 

Ellipses…

 

There’s something so marvelous

and uncanny about how these words

flow from the corners of my mind,

through my arms, into my hands,

into my fingertips and then explode

onto a keyboard, hammered hard with

the disconnected ramblings of

a Tuesday afternoon.

 

…or Ellipses.

 

I can write about love, or loss,

sex or shyness, booze and bread,

bitter tears or uncontrollable fits

of belly laughter, all smeared across this

page, like a baby eating ice cream cake

for the first time.  Fearless and flavorful.

 

Or…ellipses.

 

But really… it’s obviously both.

The words and the spaces between

the words, the things not written,

the things not said, in the silences

in between…  

 

 

These Vile Visions

 

Their knives were sharp

and ready as they sat in a

circle around the dining table,

mouths drooling,

waiting for the main course.

 

The knives glittered in the

flickering candlelight around

the cavernous dining room,

flashing steely in bright flares

as their agitated users elbowed each other.

 

A final course of innocence,

soaked in a brine of dreams,

glazed in a red sauce of potential,

all to be devoured in hasty and

messy mastication.

 

A Hieronymus Bosch hellscape painting,

of a horror show dinner, rife

with the belching and blood-curdling

sighs of monstrous ecstasy with each

flickering forkful into putrid mouths.

 

The viewer, watching from above,

horrified at the crass and gaudy

display of gluttony and inconsideration,

was muffling the gags and

vomitus ready to spew from deep in his gut.

 

“Incredible,” said the viewer,

still in shock at the inhuman

display of ravenous consumption,

the depravity and assault on decency

was nearly too much for the viewer to bear.

 

“Please, let me look no more,” said the Viewer,

“this vile scene is too much!”

He covered his eyes with his hands, as if

to clear the sights from his eyes.

“I can’t believe I have to come back here

tomorrow for work,” he said.

 

“What’s wrong with you,” asked the cafeteria worker.

 

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” said the viewer.

 

 

Rust and Star Dust

 

Rust and Star dust,

like a Messiah in the rain,

all mashed together,

in a mishagosh.

Twirling like a Dervish,

on a Friday afternoon.

 

The bitter pieces of iron,

corroding in the elements,

flaking and chipping in

reddish clumps as age takes

its toll on the constructs

of imagined permanency.

 

The gaseous and the rock,

Stars, floating in their way,

flickering in the deep blackness

of Space, reflecting the light

of countless Suns,

making us;

Us.

 

A preacher, crying for forgiveness,

tears streaming on red cheeks,

for his infidelity, his malfeasance,

in his self-aggrandizing, as rain falls,

dripping through the canvas of his

revival tent, hastily hoisted, by sinners.

 

All made of the same things,

all made of curious bonds of

proteins and carbon atoms,

longs stands and strings of genetic

material, all matter and never mind;

and it doesn’t matter.  

 

Rust and Star Dust,

mixed together like sugar in a

cup of coffee, while barista’s

yell names into the void,

and the void answers,

“That’s me.”

 

The nothingness and everythingness,

all of us and forever entwined in the

“Us” of us.

So, be merry, as we’re all.

All of us.  

No Bad Luck

 

                Jessie kicked in the front door of the bar. The patrons froze as Jessie stood, arms akimbo, clad in her karate Gi. She wiped her nose with her thumb. 

                “Hey,” said the bartender as he moved around the side of the bar, “you can’t just kick my door in! What the heck is the matter with you!” 

                Jessie moved like lightening and within an instant, the bartender had been flung across the room, crashing into the jukebox; which was ironically playing “Everyone was Kung-Fu Fighting.” The patrons began to scurry toward the back of the small bar as Jessie stepped forward, crunching the broken jukebox glass under her bare feet. 

                “I’m looking for Friday, Friday the Thirteenth,” said Jessie as she scanned the worried faces of the bar patrons. 

                “It’s on Netflix,” said someone from the crowd. Jessie leapt into the air and with a decisive strike, knocked that person through the wall. Plaster dust and cobwebs wafted in the still air. 

                “I’m not here for jokes as you can see. I’m here for vengeance,” said Jessie as she straightened her black belt around her Gi. She wiped her nose with her thumb again. 

                Sitting at the bar, in a long black trench coat and black cowboy hat with a large black crow feather sticking out from the hatband, was Friday the Thirteenth. He was looking at his own reflection in the cracked mirror behind the bar. 

                “You lookin’ fer me,” said Friday the Thirteenth. He stood up from his barstool and flicked his drink straw onto the floor and then spit.  

“Heeeeey man,” said the busboy, “I gotta clean that man, c’mon.” 

“Sorry,” shrugged Friday the Thirteenth. 

“You know I have been looking for you,” said Jessie, “for what you did to my brother.” She tugged at the corners of her Gi and took a combat stance. Her fists clenched so tight her knuckles had turned bone white. 

“Okay, listen. I don’t know you. I don’t know your brother. I’m just another day of the week that just happens to coincide with King Philip IV of France arrests of hundreds of the Knights Templar on Friday, October 13, 1307, and then executed them; it does not make me unlucky,” said Friday the Thirteenth. 

“You know it’s more than that,” said Jessie, who readjusted her footing. 

“Don’t come at me with your triskaidekaphobia. That’s all on you Karate Kid Four,” said Friday the Thirteenth. 

“I’m going to pummel your ass,” said Jessie. She lunged forward and swung her leg around Roadhouse style towards Friday the Thirteenth’s head. He ducked as Jessie’s bare foot just barely brushed the crow feather sticking from his hat. 

She laughed as the feather had tickled her foot in just the right spot and she didn’t stick her landing and crashed into a nearby ladder that the bartender had been using to take down Christmas lights earlier.  The patrons in the bar took that opportunity to finish their drinks and run out without paying their bills. 

Jessie shook her head back and forth and quickly stood up and got back into her fighting stance. She slowly circled Friday the Thirteenth, keeping her eyes on his. 

“Seriously, I don’t know what this is about. Did your brother like, get hurt, or God forbid, die or something? I mean, I literally had nothing to do with it,” said Friday the Thirteenth. 

Jessie clenched her teeth as she started to move forward. She Karate chopped Friday the Thirteenth across his chest and he fell backwards into the barstools. 

“Morituri te Salutamus,” shouted Jessie as she rushed towards Friday the Thirteenth. He dove to his left to escape her furious fists. 

“Holy shit lady! What the hell is the matter with you! Those of us who are about to die salute you? Are you really screaming Latin at me right now,” asked Friday the Thirteenth. 

“Confess and maybe I’ll let you live,” said Jessie. She made a fist and cracked her knuckles in Friday the Thirteenth’s face. 

“Sure, sure. I confess. Whatever it is I did I beg your forgiveness,” said Friday the Thirteenth. 

Jessie wiped her nose with her thumb again. In the distance the siren of police cars was starting to wail.  Jessie looked toward the open, broken bar door she had kicked in. She saw the faces of the patrons crowded on the sidewalk who were peeking in. 

“Too many witnesses,” said Jessie, “next time though. Next time you won’t be so lucky.” Jessie ran back through the door and hopped over the hood of police car that had just screeched to a hard stop. 

“I’m the opposite of luck you dummy,” yelled Friday the Thirteenth after Jessie. 

Friday the Thirteenth looked at the wrecked tables and bar around him. He walked over the bartender, who was just recovering from his visit through the jukebox, and extended his hand to help.

 “Just go, just get out,” said the Bartender, “I knew you were going to be trouble the second that black cat crossed in front of you.”

 “Sorry,” said Friday the Thirteenth. He tipped his hat and walked out of the bar, under a ladder, simultaneously stepping on a sidewalk crack.

 

 

The Streets of Paris

 

This planet,

Earth,

otherwise known as

the whole wide world,

is a crazy place.

 

In fact, I’m tempted to

even go so far as to call it;

silly.  It is a silly place,

full of comical magnificence’s

on a daily basis.

 

It’s just a bizarre place,

volcanos, deep fissures,

tectonic plate movement,

winds, waves, mountains.

raging seas and clowns.

 

It’s a very silly place,

and it’s no surprise to me that other

possible intelligent life has perhaps,

skipped right over Earth like we skip

the Denny’s in the “bad” part of town.

 

Our ineptness at taking care of

ourselves in fairly staggering,

yet we’ve accomplished so much in

a mere twenty to thirty thousand years.

All with a fat grin on our silly faces.

 

A species of priorities,

mingled with what we want,

what we need and what we

desire in some hilarious mish-mash

of humanity, attempting to govern itself.

 

It is pretty funny,

after it’s all said and done,

an entire planet of clowns and

circuses, bumping into each other like

so many mimes crowding the streets

of Paris, in the rain, on a Tuesday.

 

 

 

 

A Good Old Toe Stubbing

 

There hasn’t been a lot

I’ve wanted to say lately;

sometimes the words

are constipated with how

well things seem to be going.

 

The greater the personal

tragedy or the largess of

human charity, the more

I seem to have to say,

until I don’t.

 

There’s something about

being mostly happy that

seems to prevent me from

writing anything that I really

like.

 

It’s as if I find being relatively

happy and in a good headspace,

so off putting that any creativity

I would normally espouse is

hung up in a closet, not to see

the light of day.

 

I seem to need some amount

of misery in order to be more

productive in my chosen craft.

Like, I’m sure if I stubbed my toe,

and it was excruciatingly painful,

I could write about it.

 

Yet, I haven’t stubbed my toe,

or found myself in a situation in which

I am upset, annoyed, or otherwise

off-put. It seems I’m doing too well

for my own mind.

 

Which is just as disturbing I suppose,

and traumatic, as a surprise toe-stubbing,

at night, on the coffee table, screaming

god damns and mother-effers into the

darkness as I hop around trying to be cool.

 

Oh well,

I guess I’ll just have to find something else

to write about.