Ominous Summer Season

 

The ominous summer season

is giving me a good reason

to stay in my bed

and cover my head

to avoid Nature's red treason.

He Tried to Walk on Water From Florida to New York. It Didn’t Go So Well. (Neil Vigdor for the NYT.)

 

"Reza Baluchi washed ashore on Saturday near St. Augustine, Fla., in a ‘‘hydro pod,” startling beachgoers with a homemade contraption that resembles a hamster wheel."

Edward Morton Stuzzlefield

invented fruit already peeled;

banana bunches he created

that of their skin had been castrated.

But the public did not feel

that his invention had appeal.

In poverty he did remain,

without so much as quiche lorraine.

*

But Edward could not be defeated;

he turned his thoughts to lands depleted.

Organic fertilizer, cheap,

came to him one night in sleep.

To Washington he traveled quick

with burlap sacks both strong and thick

to capture all the rich bs

that came straight from our own Congress.

He spread it on a test field bare

and clover grew like teenage hair.

But once again the public sank

his hopes, because the bs stank --

no farmer wanted Edward's mix;

they said it reeked of politics.

*

Now Stuzzlefield was in a bind;

on all his bills he fell behind.

Another brainstorm came at last,

and this one seemed quite unsurpassed!

In his garage he toiled away,

inventing hard both night and day.

And came up with a giant spoon

to catapult men to the Moon.

Put billionaires in outer space,

thought Ed, and I'll be Upper Case.

It had a giant spring and gear,

and Ed was first to volunteer.

He sprang into the stratosphere -- 

and ne'er was seen again, I fear.

*

His spirit, though, lives on in those

who want to challenge the cosmos;

those who dream and tinker when

the world is filled with lesser men

content to plod the daily rut

and think our hero was a nut.

To crackpot dreamers everywhere

I bow my head and wish you fair!

Give me a can of beans.

 

Give me a can of beans,

just any kind you please:

Kidney, Lima, red,

and especially black eye peas.

I eat 'em with eggs for breakfast.

Put 'em on toast for lunch.

Mash 'em with roasted peanuts

at dinner, for the crunch.

They're always on sale at the market;

forty-nine cents per can.

A pantry full of Goya,

and I'm feeling like a new man.

So what if they make me gassy?

So what if the foodies object?

I live by myself on fixed income;

don't need to be so circumspect!

Prose Poem: The Gulf of Thailand.

 

As a foolish and scared

middle aged man

fleeing heavy fees

for a failed marriage

I washed up on the beach

in Ban Phe.

Sure, I was a coward;

most men are

when it comes to money.

Rather than face the music

I faced the brightness of wild

cloud wrack over 

the Gulf of Thailand.

Taught a little English.

Ate a lot of shrimp fried rice

on banana leaves.

Knew a Thai woman my age

who drank her beer with ice in it.

She owned a black Toyota truck.

Imagined my kids

come to visit me 

on my coconut plantation.

I rented a bungalow

with a yard full of soursop trees

and a fish pond;

the spirit house was next to

the privy.

Toyota truck woman

hung orchids everywhere --

ten baht apiece. 

I felt whole on the surface;

underneath were my limestone caverns,

ready to collapse into sink holes

at the drop of a wide brimmed hat --

which you needed in that climate.

When my dreams began to fill with snow

I let my passport lapse

and borrowed money to go back.

Come back to canned mangoes.

Crumpled hundred baht notes

I mailed to my kids --

the letters were returned

'Address Unknown.'

And tall stringy bamboo plants

in the waiting rooms of government

agencies, 

waiting for them to take away . . . 

well, everything.

But I eventually found out

when they take away everything

from you

you grow new shoots

like the bamboo.

Although you're still

hollow

inside.

********************

Theodore Freedman, of Camden NJ, analyzed the above poem thus:

"That was your best work my old friend. Your best work because I heard how honest and real this time was for you and how you were filled up and empty at the same time.  The Buddhists would aver that the empty space in you is the good part, the useful part. A coffee cup is only useful because of the empty space inside." 

Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming. (Max Fisher for the NYT.)

 

The truth is out of vogue, it seems.

With factories producing streams

of falsehoods for a tidy sum,

and workers stir the vilest scum

to mold opinions that will cause

humanity to show its claws.

No one knows the final price

of this booming cyber-vice.

Men have eyes for only wealth,

and so they work in techno-stealth

to rain deceit upon the globe

like acid precip's deadly robe.

Yet truth cannot be hid for long;

it sings an everlasting song

that rises over all the smut

of discord and foul scuttlebutt.

And those who deal in wholesale lies

will find they've won a tinsel prize.

Meanwhile guard the light within

and laugh at all the foolish din!

The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Misinformation Online. (Sheera Frenkel, for the NYT.)

 

Joseph Mercola, an osteopath,

doesn't know bupkis but he can do math.

Misinformation is his stock in trade;

he's pulling in money with his masquerade.

Facebook and Twitter have posted his trash

and viewers seem willing to give him their cash.

No vaccination! he endlessly posts.

They're unnecessary, he constantly boasts.

Eat plenty of yogurt, and mattresses shun,

and this, he does claim, is how health will be won.

A quack with some letters right after his name

is often believed by the mentally lame;

they lap up his products at prices immense

and show all the world how they lack common sense.

How sad that a market will always exist

for mountebank promises that turn to mist!

Montana’s Famed Trout Under Threat as Drought Intensifies. (Jim Robbins for the NYT.)

 

If I were a trout in Montana

I would not be shouting hosanna.

The streams are too low

and warming up so

I'd feel like a rotten banana.

Tokyo Olympics Open to a Sea of Empty Seats. (Motoko Rich for the NYT.)

 

The Olympic Stadium shows

Mr. and Mrs. Rows;

an old circus term

that made troupers squirm --

meaning the bank would foreclose.

Coast-to-coast heat dome to deliver sweltering weather next week. (Mathew Cappucci for the WaPo.)

 

Do you know this man? He is wanted in ten states, and

not wanted in a dozen others.

The devil thought he'd take a peek

at the Midwest for a week.

It was stuffy down in hell,

so he'd cool off for a spell.

But when he stopped off in Des Moines

he roasted like a tenderloin.

Seeking comfort, he did jaunt

over to Shelburne Vermont.

There beneath the blazing sun

he baked up like a sally lunn.

Fleeing such enormous heat,

he headed to the Rockies' feet.

In Denver he turned into ash;

in Salt Lake he picked up heat rash.

He fled to Portland for a respite;

he was getting pretty desperate.

But the city held no charm --

it was like a four alarm.

"Back to hell I go!" said he.

"At least my office has a.c.!"

Businesses condemned Georgia’s voting law, then gave thousands to its backers. (Isaac Stanley-Becker, for the WaPo.)

 

Corporations like to be

thought full of integrity.

Corp'rate funding is the club

they use all bad things to drub.

In their mighty righteousness

they are careful with largesse.

Yet, when viewed at closer range,

their donations can seem strange.

Sometimes they will help finance

demagogues and their shrill rants.

Legislators who betray

common sense have their payday

from the likes of Comcast Inc. --

keeping pograms in the pink.

Thus the bizness hypocrite

sins while quoting holy writ;

keeping both sides satisfied

with profits always magnified.