Narrative Poem: A Trip to Turkey.

 My Dear Children;

Did I ever tell you about my stay in Turkey?

They have many strange customs and laws there.

On Fridays everyone has to walk backwards between the hours of noon and six in the evening. Their great founding leader, Kemel Attaboy, thought this would increase productivity and lessen the stranglehold of the muftis. 

Then there's the custom of 'namby-pamby,' a turkoman tradition dating back to ancient times. Before the Pharaohs built the freeways, the Turks were hunting down the fleet-footed namby and breeding them with the woolly pamby -- for a breed of dogs that can herd sheep as well as provide a kind of hair fiber perfect for making throw rugs. And everyone knows how deadly the Turks are with throwing their rugs. That's how they conquered half the world. No army can stand up to a barrage of such terrible tapestry.

It's kinda funny, the way I got to go to Turkey. My older brother Billy's friend Crazy Henry won a free trip to Turkey at a benefit raffle to raise funds for a new cement mixer at the orphanage. Well, Crazy Henry couldn't go to Turkey -- he had a previous commitment to lecture at the George Pal Museum in Waterloo Iowa -- so he gave me his ticket. And a bag of licorice to sell in Turkey; the Turks dearly love to smoke it in their hubble-bubbles and will pay through the nose for Grade A licorice. I made a lot of snotty lira.

When I got back from Turkey I could speak the language like a Frenchman. So I set up a language school in an abandoned railroad car. But I found it to be a rather brutal existence. Struggling with vowel harmony and agglutination. So I took off for Switzerland with one of my pupils -- a young girl named Weena. Ah . . . Switzerland! Where the air smells like cough drops.

Oh, it was quite a scandal. I can tell you that. My father cut me off without one red cent. Or two green nickels. Or even a ha'penny. The newspapers had a field day. Sack races; ring toss; ping pong shake; and cup stacking. They even stooped to face painting! 

Weena and I were personas non grata at every European embassy from Vaduz to Valletta. But we didn't care. We were young and carboniferous -- and I had saved up enough Green Stamps to keep us going indefinitely.

But eventually our relationship soured. She was a Pisces and I was, and still am, a dyed in the wool Mugwump. So we parted ways. She went off to Conakry to join their Olympic Marimba team. And I, well ~ you know what happened to me --

I joined Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows as a First-of-May. And that's where I met your mother, who was running a floss joint.    

And the rest, as they say, is hysterical.

Love,

Heinie Manush.

Narrative Poem: The Bomb Cyclone.

 

My Dear Children;

Well, the infamous 'Bomb Cyclone' has come and gone.

It left cows stranded on top of stoplights and flushed out the sewers until they now smell like bougainvillea. 

The electricity has been out for nearly a week. So it's lucky we have our food storage and a large supply of candles. After trying to eat our food storage items, we have switched to eating our candles. They taste much better.

During the storm an old woman in a rocking chair floated by our patio, where we were sheltering several dozen kangaroo rats and a parcel of peahens. She spoke to us as she passed by, these shining words of wisdom:

"Always clean your shoes. Never talk to someone without teeth. Eat your spinach with nutmeg and white vinegar. Wear a hat after dark. Always support the bottom. Feed your children before they wake up. And never use a monkey wrench when a screwdriver will do!"

I was sorry to see her sucked down a storm drain.

The rain was bad. But the wind was worse. It grew so boisterous that several nearby trees packed up their bags and went home to mother. A leaf was propelled with such force that it went through a cement wall and a bowling ball. The big green dumpster down the alleyway from our apartment was blown inside the Post Office. Where it was accidentally mailed to the White House by overzealous postal employees.

I must say that even though the bomb cyclone was brutal and unrelenting, the USPS came through with flying colors. We got our junk mail every day, come rain or shine or a plague of locusts. And the milkman never stopped coming by with our butter, cream, and stock market quotations. I can't say the same for the Fuller Brush Man or the Mary Kay Lady -- they totally abandoned us to our fates, and we haven't seen hide nor hair of them since just before the storm struck. When they tried to sell us life insurance guaranteed through the 7-11 convenience store Corporation. Your mother and I only bought a few million dollars worth of coverage. Now if something happens to either one of us, the other one can collect a tidy sum. And I'm sure there's no connection, but your mother wants to order a pound of ground glass from Amazon Prime today . . . 

I had to stop writing this email for a moment so I could nod off and dream about shoe laces. That's very symbolic, you know. Shoe laces represent repressed feelings for woolen fabrics. But now I'm wide awake again; your mother tiptoed in and kissed me on the top of my head.

Of course potable water is always a problem after a big storm. Luckily, I discovered an artisan spring next to our patio. We not only got water from it, but were able to buy some original pottery pieces.

I have much more to tell you, but I think I'll wait until this evening to write again. By then, if we're all lucky, I'll have forgotten what it was.

Love,

Heinie Manush.

Narrative Poem: The many uses of Styrofoam.

 

My Dear Children;

How well I remember going with my family to the Scrumbles as a small boy!

A group of islands off the coast of Idaho, those delightful dots of rock and pine were the perfect place for a young boy to gambol and caper. Of course, there were “NO CAPERING!” and “NO GAMBOLING!” signs everywhere – but that didn’t stop me from cutting didoes galore!

The reason my parents liked the Scrumbles so much was because it featured styrofoam cabins at reasonable rates; when you were done with your cabin, you simply placed it in the water so it could drift off into the sunset.

Back in those halcyon days everything was made of styrofoam.

Buildings were mostly styrofoam, with a smattering of brick and wood. The streets were paved with styrofoam. Cars and trucks were styrofoam. Our astronauts rode to the Moon in a styrofoam rocket. It was a simpler time. Easier on the pocketbook. And on the environment. Because styrofoam eventually decays into Silly Putty. Which is useful for all manner of things; caulking boats, curing neuralgia, keeping cockchafers at bay, and bouncing off the heads of Republicans.

Well, as I was saying – back then things were simpler and easier to explain away.  If you had a wooden leg, a knapsack full of marshmallows, and a singletree, you could look anyone in the eye and say you were an honest and independent man. My father worked in the salt and pepper mines most of his life, and he died a happy and befuddled man. My mother stayed at home, tending children and making rhubarb mustard plasters for the sick and afflicted. A saintly woman, she often used iron railroad spikes for macrame and gave the finished, knotted, products to distraught men and women who roamed up and down Hennepin Avenue during the cold winter months. 

As I look back, I think the best times were those when the pemmican dancers arrived from North Dakota. They were a jolly yet stoic crew. We often stole their odd-looking shoes to use as bagpipes. 

But I digress.

I always regretted that I couldn’t take you kids on the kind of vacations my parents took me on. But the times were different, and my temperment left me unsuited for work in the mines like my father. So I tried my hand at professional jam tasting. Unfortunately, my hand was not good at it. And neither was the rest of me. Next came a career at casting aspersions. But my pitching arm wasn’t strong enough. 

Eventually I settled on latex wrangler. The hours were long and the work was grueling. But I developed a taste for gruel at last. And from then on we managed to live in modest comfort. Although I never could afford to give any of you kids a second head, like most of your playmates had. What with one thing and another, I was barely able to keep a fire hose on the table most of the time.

Still, we had some good times – didn’t we? Remember the hammock races? And those long nights before the wheat grinder telling ghost stories? I hope you realize how much those moments meant to me and your mother. We always dreamed you kids would grow up to become scholars and acrobats. And now that you have gone out and made your way in the world as Gumby collectors and chinglers, I just want you to know your mother and I are mighty proud of you. Mighty proud.

And by the way – could you lend your old dad twenty bucks until rain falls up?

Thanks!

Heinie Manush.

Narrative Poem: Google.

 

My Dear Children;

Here is what happened to me today.

I was googling my name and found someone with my exact name who was a 17th century Doge in Venice. So I went to Wikipedia to find out about the guy.

He was some villain! He had children murdered if he considered them too homely. He put housewives in stuffy wooden boxes when they fried fish too close to his palace. And he made all the men wear red suspenders.

Timothy Robert Torkildson, the 99th Doge of Venice, dredged the Lagoon for sand. Which he shipped to Siam for a fantastic profit. He started a war with Lombardy, which ended with the enslavement of Lombard soldiers as chimney sweeps. He banned the use of peacock feathers. And the use of verjuice in cookery.

The populace finally arose and deposed him, cutting off his head and mounting it on a barber pole. Where it turned round and around for the next ten years. 

I felt a strange kinship to him -- as if he and I were brothers.

"Devo impazzire! I thought to myself.

Dark thoughts, tyrannical daydreams, invaded my mind. I decided to go work out at the gym to rid myself of them.

But at the gym I stepped onto a treadmill next to a man who kept scowling at me.  We both finished our workouts together. He wiped his face, and then announced fiercely to me:  "I am Benito Mussolini!" 

"In a pig's eye" I told him. Then put a 'Z' on his forehead with a red magic marker. 

A semi hauling a vat of Chef Boyardee ravioli overturned as I was walking back home from the gym. And I was covered with tomato sauce.

Things were getting a bit too Italian for me. Dangerously so. 

So I ducked into the nearest vacuum repair shop to have a long discussion with the owner on Pascal's wager. He convinced me that there is no harm in being good, through the use of fluid dynamics.

When the sun had reached the tip of the Italian stone pines I shook hands with the owner of the shop and went home.

Your mother asked me: "Where have you been all day? The dog needs watering!"

To which I replied:  "Woman, weepest not. I am now convinced that Pascal's wager is true. Let's go out to celebrate at the Silver Dish."

But when we got there the place was closed in celebration of Chinese New Year. So we heated some bricks and roasted potatoes on our patio instead. 

A shooting star overhead inspired me to tell your mother:  "Life is shorter than expected but longer than a traffic jam."

"You are so right" she told me, as we walked into an open question.

Love,

Heinie Manush.

Narrative Poem: The Nuclear Winter.

 

My Dear Children;

The nuclear winter was not as bad as we thought it would be.

Oh sure, lots of people went missing; they were never found in the rubble. But surprisingly enough almost all the people who really mattered in government, education, science, and the arts, survived.

I’m glad to say that our extended family only lost a few aunts, uncles, and a smattering of cousins. For the most part, we were all still here – ready to start over again!

And don’t let anyone tell you we had to start from scratch, with our bare hands! No Siree!

The banks still functioned. The trains ran. Side streets were passable. Bicycles were being given away. 

And, praise be, the supermarkets continued to do a land office business. Don’t ask me how they got their produce, or from where – I never asked, and I never really wanted to know. I mean, c’mon, do you really care if bananas are purple and hamburger glows green in the dark? Food is food. We had plenty to eat. And the earth, far from being sterile and contaminated, gave forth abundantly. Remember that bacon tree in our backyard?  The one that produced long strips of crispy brown bacon each spring? The wheat crop never failed, and the chickens laid eggs like crazy. I never paid much attention to those rural fairy tales about the bull men who snuck up on you in the dark out in a field to gore you with their horns. Or the pig-things that went ‘oink’ but flew up into the trees at the least disturbance. Somebody’s idea of a joke, I’m sure.

Here in the city I went back to work a few weeks after nuclear winter started. It was pleasant to walk through the drifting snow to my office hole. 

One benefit of the extended cold and snow that everyone recognizes is that it got rid of the Covid virus once and for all. No more masks or shots. No more sick days (for the virus – everyone gets lots of sick days for radiation poisoning.) As a community, we all discovered that a full set of teeth wasn’t all that important. You can chew just as well with two teeth as with twenty. 

Now you may laugh, kids, when I tell you this, but ten years ago most people had hair on top of their heads. Men, women, and children! Of course we know now that facial hair is very unhealthy and unsanitary – it breeds all sorts of parasites. And it eats up so much time each day to take care of!

I’m so glad we are all rid of the curse of hair nowadays.

And now, kids, I have some very special news for you. Your mother and I have finally metastasized enough to begin that final phase of our radioactive transformation. Yes, that’s right — we now have the ability to defecate cryptocurrency!  I can unload Bitcoin, and your mother dumps Ethereum. Isn’t that wonderful? Now our comfort in old age is assured. And don’t worry, you kids will be getting plenty of this windfall. After it’s been cleaned up a bit.

I hope this missive finds you well and not growing any more heads.

Love,

Heinie Manush.

Narrative Poem: How an extremist is made.

 

The sidewalk was cracked and uneven

 in front of my house.

Tree roots have buckled it.

Have heaved it up into drunken slabs.

So I called the Sidewalk Department.

They put me on hold for ten years.

During that time I got an MBA.

Went to work for the city.

And was put in charge of

the Sidewalk Department.

When I finally got through to me

I promised the situation would be

looked into.

I took down my name, address,

email, and telephone number.

Then promptly lost the information.

Luckily, I record all my phone calls 

at work.

I had my secretary type up

a transcript. In triplicate.

Then our department went paperless.

Everything was scanned. 

Then it was hacked 

and held for ransomware.

We had to pay off in bitcoin.

I was fired as head of

the Sidewalk Department

and had to take a job 

sweeping out sawdust

at a lumber mill in Vermont.

So I sold the house.

Now the crooked sidewalk in front

is somebody else's problem.

In Vermont I bought a sugar bush

to supplement my income.

As a small businessman

I think any vaccination mandate

is unconstitutional.

As is a sales tax. 

I'm ready to dump all

my maple syrup into 

the Walloomsac River in protest.

Who's with me?

Narrative Poem: The Talking Bush.

 

So I was walking along the alley

when a scraggly bare bush spoke to me.

It said:  "Take off your hat, mug."

"You're on holy ground."

I gaped a moment, then said:

"Are you talking to me?"

"Yeah" said the bush,

"There ain't no one else here, chump."

Whether it could talk or not,

this bush was rude.

I decided to ignore it

and continued down the alley.

"Hey wait!' it called after me,

"Dontcha wanna know my secret?"

"Tell it to the dumpster" I replied airily,

before turning the corner.

Now the alley became just a path

paved with clinkers. There were

a few scrawny trees. Piles of junk.

And a glowing red pool that was singing.

The lyrics went something like this:

"Come along to my shore,

where my face you'll adore."

I threw a clinker into the pool,

which turned into a handsome older woman.

Dressed for the opera, with a diamond tiara.

"You have released me from a curse 

placed on me by Abe no Seimei" 

she said to me.

"What is your wish?"

"A ham and cheese on rye"

I replied without thinking.

"Who the heck is Abe no Seimei?" 

I asked.

"Donald Trump in a former life"

she replied, slowly melting away

into a blue mist. 

I threw the sandwich away.

Uneaten. 

Haiku: 小さな音の快適さ

 

the rush of hot air --

the comfort of small noises;

pull the covers up.

熱気のラッシュ-

小さな音の快適さ;

カバーを引き上げます。

far off train horn moan --

the comfort of small noises

in my night cocoon.

電車のクラクションのうめき声から遠く離れて-
小さな音の快適さ
私の夜の繭で。

the bacon hisses --

the comfort of small noises;

no alarm clock now.

ベーコンヒス-
小さな音の快適さ;
現在、目覚まし時計はありません。

Narrative Poem: Fast Food.

 

"I don't mean what I say"

I told the police woman.

She ignored my comment

and took me before the desk sergeant.

"Disorderly conduct" she told the sergeant.

The desk sergeant wrote busily

while green ink flowed out his ears.

"I have many witnesses to attest to this"

I continued stoutly,

for when my friends and neighbors heard of my

arrest they flocked to the police station.

"He also picks his nose in public"

added the police woman. Unnecessarily.

"He said Don Ameche was his father"

said my roommate. "But then he later

confessed it was a lie."

Mr. Birnbaum, who lives across the street,

piped up "Yeah! He called me a mole hole -- 

then publicly retracted his statement at McDonalds."

"It was at Subway, you pickled walrus!"

I yelled at Birnbaum -- for he was obviously 

trying to defame me. "I never eat at McDonalds."

There was a gelid silence.

Then spake the desk sergeant:

"Take Mr. Birnbaum away; he's a spy."

I was then released,

and treated all my neighbors

to sandwiches at Subway.

Where I admitted I often

ate at McDonalds.

A letter to my kids. Sunday. Jan 23. 2022.

 Dear Scions;

I hope your Sunday has been as quiet and peaceful as ours has been so far. We went to church this morning at 8:30. Your mother was called and sustained and set apart to be a Temple Family History Specialist. After Priesthood we came home, where your mother visited with your brother Steve while I went in the bedroom for a long nap.

We figured out where the flour moths are coming from – a big box of Honey Bunches of Oats that someone gave us a while back. We’re constantly being given stale and bug-ridden food – we usually catch the bad stuff right away, but sometimes it gets past us and thus the bug outbreaks. Bleah.

I’m baking a loaf of Irish soda bread to take over to Sarah’s today around five. We love making this kind of bread, cuz it’s so easy. Just takes a lot of buttermilk. My lunch today, in fact, was a big dill pickle and a glass of buttermilk.

Do you ever get homesick for North Dakota? Think you might like to go back there to live? Well, it’s going to get awful noisy there – as this news article from a recent Billings Gazette attests:

‘North Dakota’s bitterly cold winters make for the ideal setting desired by a new industry eyeing the state: cryptocurrency.

Interest has picked up over the past year in locating data centers within North Dakota. Such facilities consist of computer servers that can be used for a variety of purposes, including to mine digital money in the case of some of the companies considering the state.

Data centers generate a lot of heat. They tend to require a significant amount of power and cooling equipment to function well.

“Every time I talk to a utility and mention data centers, they say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got all kinds of people talking to us wanting to come,’” said John Weeda, director of the North Dakota Transmission Authority.

Data centers are needed for cloud storage. Banks use them for financial transactions. The facilities are increasingly in demand to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions, which are recorded in ledgers known as blockchains. Computers lend processing power to validate those transactions, and they are rewarded with more cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin.

That so-called “mining” process is energy-intensive, as electricity powers the servers and the fans used to cool down the hardware.

The fans associated with a large standalone data center could generate a lot of noise, and city officials say the facilities inquiring about coming to Bismarck may or may not place employees on-site. Officials have expressed concerns about the potential for data centers to catch fire, as has happened in other North Dakota communities such as at a Grand Forks computer server farm in 2019.’

It sounds like North Dakota might be a good place for your next fortune, though – if you have Uncle Benny-type money laying around. Just make sure you have good fire insurance.

Next, as the offspring of a clown who started at the top and worked his way to the bottom, I’m sure you want to know about the comedy scene here in Utah County. With which I have nothing to do at present, although your mother and I have talked about going to Open Mic Night on Mondays.  From the Salt Lake Magazine, this bit of purple prose:

A Mormon, a Catholic and an atheist walk into a comedy club…and the Diet Cokes they order are the dirtiest punchlines in this story because this club is in Utah County. Ask anyone who has made their final exodus from Utah County and they’ll tell you the culture of Happy Valley leaves much to be desired, but the strange milieu of prevalent cultural influences were the perfect conditions to create a petri dish in which the bacteria of a burgeoning comedy scene can grow. A squeaky clean comedy scene, the germs of which have become Utah County’s main cultural export, partially thanks to the viral nature of social media. We endeavored to discover the secret of the scene’s evolution and laud the success of the comedians, performers and content creators at its core.  “I kind of love and hate Jim Gaffigan fans,”  says Tanner Rahlf of the famous comedian known for his all-audiences brand of humor. “They’re like ‘he’s just so clean’ but I watch what he does as a comedian myself. He’s not good because he plays clean. He’s good because he’s a great comedian.” 

These days, he hosts the standup nights at ImprovBroadway and believes that just as sketch and improv comedy in Utah County have blown up, stand-up is the next big thing. 

“You can feel it in Provo,”  says Tanner , “There’s something about to burst. I’m seeing some of the funniest stuff at the open mics that I’ve ever seen. It’s palpable. Audiences are craving more standup. There is a joy and a rush for the audience and the comedians. Like we’re all in on the same joke together.” 

So I guess we’re in the right place at the right time for my next big comedy break- through. I wonder if you can do stand up from a rocking chair? I’d like to try it, anyway.

Well, it’s nearly time to go back to church for our Temple Preparation Class. The bishop asked us to be in the class as an example to the young couples called to the class. Trouble is, most of the young couples the class is for don’t show up. So it’s just us and the instructor. After that we’re off to Sarah’s. 

Roses are red/violets fade/I hope you enjoyed/this long gasconade!  

Love, 

Heinie Manush.